


It's the Zombie Apocalypse

by stayseated



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Zombies, F/M, Gen, Multi, Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-06-05
Updated: 2016-12-26
Packaged: 2018-07-12 10:18:17
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 22
Words: 80,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7098694
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stayseated/pseuds/stayseated
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Members of powerful families board a boat and visit an island that enticingly promises them more power and more might.  But when they get there, they learn it might not be at all what they were expecting.  Spoiler alert: Zombies.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. one

 

 

 

He makes sure to get on the yacht first — hopping up from the dock. He stands sideways, with his back to the water, with his piece underneath the flap of his suit jacket, on his left side. He holds out his hand and takes her smaller, paler one in his. His eyes scan the immediate area — they are some of the first ones on.

“Thank you,” his boss says, voice quiet. Her grip on him tightens imperceptibly as she steps down, her platinum bob eerily resisting the harsh wind. After she lets go, he ushers her to a seat, the one to his immediate left.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Missandei climbing onto the yacht by herself, her hands awkwardly holding down her loose skirt so it doesn’t get blown up over her head. He rushes back over, surprising her a little bit by grabbing her wrists — he loosens his hold — and he helps guide her the rest of the way onto the yacht.

She clears her throat and offers him a quick smile. He lets go of her.

“Sit,” Daenerys says to him. “Honestly, you can’t stand the entire trip.”

 

 

  
He’s leaning against a railing with his arms crossed over his chest — when a server hands Daenerys a glass of red wine. He’s listening — rather than watching, because his eyes are scanning around the yacht — to her softly saying something to Missandei. Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Missandei pours the wine out over the edge of the yacht.

He straightens when he sees two well-dressed men, two well-dressed women, and one badly dressed and very, very tall . . . woman. Missandei is better at these kinds of details, but he did study the guest list carefully. These are the Starks. He silently watches them board the yacht, chatting casually about something or other as the security assesses him — her eyes skeptical and simultaneously scrutinizing.

A line is already forming to get onto the yacht. He can recognize some from their pictures. The only other foreigner on the list, besides him and Missandei, is the Khal, who looks ready for a fight, and his man, who is old. Grey also sees the Greyjoys and — the Lannisters.

Daenerys is already paranoid and on-edge, but the sight of the Lannisters makes her freeze up, tension coiled in her body. Grey moves incrementally closer to her, sliding his back against the damp railing.

 

 

  
She flicks through her tablet to get to Dany’s itinerary, syncing the new additions to the cloud — so that Dany can update it on her own phone later. Missandei tells Dany that they are only four hours out, carefully suggesting that Dany sleep, without outrightly articulating it, lest she oversteps boundaries. Dany unexpectedly asks Missandei what the Khal had been talking to his man about.

Missandei works to recall what she heard on the upper deck — she hadn’t really been eavesdropping.

“He was upset,” Missandei says, suddenly hit with the recollection. She’s scrunching up her face. “Because the launch time was delayed. I think he gets seasick, perhaps. He was mostly talking about how he doesn’t like being on the boat.”

“Okay,” Dany says, tilting her head. “Interesting.”

 

 

  
Wordlessly, Missandei follows him out of the room with her tablet pressed protectively over her chest so that Dany can rest. After he quietly shuts the door, he spins around and touches his back to it. It’s an action she’s seen hundreds of times before. He is strictly professional — very strict — very by the book.

She’s exhausted. She’s been up since before dawn, nailing down the last details of the trip, checking in with the teams in Yunkai, Pentos, and Meereen — to ensure there were no last-minute issues or questions that needed answering. After all, they won’t be able to make contact once they get off the boat. They have all been made well-aware that the location is . . . primitive.

She pushes some of her hair out of her face. “Are you hungry?” she asks him.

He shakes his head — face still in its perpetual frown.

“I mean, I can bring you food,” she says carefully, clarifying. “I know you can’t leave your post.” She rubs her lips together, smearing the remnants of lipstick that has probably already been mostly bitten off from all the stress-worrying.

His expression lifts — just a little bit — at that. He kind of smiles at her. And — after staring at her for a beat, he says, “Watch them make your food. Get a little extra. And then bring it back down here to me.”

 

 

  
It’s difficult to watch her food being made because it’s all been pre-prepared. But the upside of that is that all of them get poisoned or none of them get poisoned. And just to be safe, she switches plates with the female Greyjoy. What’s funny is that she wasn’t at all a paranoid and suspicious person before she started working for Dany. Dany’s quirks have rubbed off on her. And he’d be proud, that she thought to switch plates — maybe accidentally causing the murder of an innocent woman perhaps.

Her sense of humor has also become very grim, in the course of working for Dany.

She’s about to go back downstairs and brag to him about how clever she was, avoiding being poisoned, when a male voice says, “Why, hello there. I don’t believe we’ve officially met.”

Missandei turns around — and then immediately casts her eyes downward.

He holds out his hand. “Tyrion Lannister.”

And he’s drunk.

 

 

  
After stealing an opened bottle of wine from Tyrion Lannister, Missandei descends the stairs and crosses hallways. She’s studied a map of the entire yacht, committing all the rooms to memory — another thing she never used to do before this job. But she does have a talent for memorization, so it’s been folded into her day-to-day.

He’s standing stick-straight, rigid, and staring ahead at nothing when she rounds the corner. Even though she’s also exhausted, she also knows that if she goes to sleep, he’ll be alone with no one to keep him company. This is why she’s pushing through for another hour, maybe two.

She dangles the wine bottle in her hand enticingly — two glasses with stems wedged in between her fingers.

He shakes his head, which is not at all surprising. He never drinks on the job. He might actually never drink period. She doesn’t know because she doesn’t know what he’s like outside of work. Sometimes she imagines him doing normal people things, like grocery shopping or meeting friends for dinner — and she cannot even imagine. She cannot imagine him as anything other than this severe person who is excellent at his job.

They are sitting on the floor, in front of Dany’s door, with the plate of food in between them. He’s peeling back all the layers of the canapes and mini sandwiches, to make sure — well, she doesn’t know exactly what he looks for, when he does this sort of thing. After he efficiency reassembles everything, he gestures to her — signals for her to eat.

As she lightly twirls the glass of wine in her hand, as she picks off the pickles from sandwiches — it’s not that she doesn’t like pickles; it’s more that he likes them a lot — it occurs to her that it’s been forever since she’s been on an actual date like a normal human being.

 

 

  
Daenerys like her privacy, but she also likes to keep Missandei nearby. That is why Missandei’s room is adjacent to Daenerys’. This also makes his job a little bit easier — though, his job isn’t really to protect Missandei at all.

There’s an awkwardness after she comes back downstairs after taking the plate and wine glasses back to the kitchen. Her face is shiny with sweat — her make-up far less precise than how it looked when he greeted her this morning.

She laughs a little, self-consciously. “I always feel bad that I get to go to sleep — that I get a break from my job. While you’re just out here . . . doing your thing.”

He kind of shrugs. “Don’t feel bad,” he says.

“Well,” she says. “Goodnight.”

“Goodnight, Missandei.”

 

 

  
His room is on the other side of Daenerys’. And he gets ready for bed after the yacht shuts down, after everyone is in bed, and it’s dark and quiet.

He has a special ability to run on very little sleep — for about a week — then after that, he crashes hard. It’s very much a human affliction, to need sleep. This is why they all alternate long shifts with Daenerys. One week on call twenty-four-seven, two weeks regular schedule, one week off — rinse, repeat. He was actually slated to be off this week — he had these lofty goals where he was going to read a book, clean up his apartment, water his plants, call his mom, lie to her and pretend that everything is wonderful — but Daenerys specifically requested that he accompany her on this business trip.

His gun is lying next to him in bed, under the sheets, loaded. His sleeps on the job are never really good. He never goes into a deep sleep. His brain is always on alert, hyper-vigilant, listening for the sound of a woman screaming.

 

 

  
By the time they wake up, they are already docked — and there is this uneasy sizzle of anticipation in the air. Dany doesn’t eat much for breakfast, for this reason. Missandei is half-heartedly spearing fruit with her fork and shoving it into her mouth. She doesn’t feel very good — probably from being confined to a small room. Even though it’s a big enough boat, it’s still a boat. The rocking motion from the night before made her a little bit nauseous.

The chair next to her gets pulled out. And then Greyjoy — the male one — plops down on it. “Can I buy you a drink?” he asks.

She looks at him — blank — to convey her general disinterest.

“It was a joke,” he adds, a little sheepish. He pushes his hand out toward her. “Theon,” he says.

She shakes his hand. “Missandei.”

He reaches out and picks up her other hand. She straightens in her seat because of it, because the action is so confusing to her. Theon flips her left hand over, looking at the back of it.

And then she gets it. He’s looking for a wedding ring. Or, he’s making a big show about looking for a wedding ring.

“Ah ha!” he says. “Good to know.”

“Hi.”

She and Theon both look up to see Grey looming over them. He has a knack for suddenly materializing out of thin air. His face is serious and grim.

Then to Theon, he says, “Leave.”

 

 

  
They all disembark the yacht, stepping foot on the sandy shore of the island, following a paved path that disappears into the forest. Beside him, Missandei mutters that their host sure has a flair for the dramatic — wondering out loud why there isn’t at least a tour guide to lead them to the facility. He bites back a grin. Instead, he schools his face into despondent indifference, as he walks in front of them — following the Starks — blocking both women with his body.

His firearm is sturdy against his body — and that was a point of contention in the contract Daenerys eventually signed. They had assured her that that level of security would not be necessary. Daenerys had insisted that it’s always necessary. He isn’t clear on the details, of the back and forth. That is Missandei’s domain. He is just the muscle. But in the end — he was cleared to bring a gun.

They walk through the thick and humid forest brush for what feels like forty minutes — which causes all these rich and pampered people to incrementally lose their shit more and more — the deeper and deeper they get into the green. He watches as one of the Stark women — the taller one — nearly twists her ankle in mud, grunting loudly her displeasure to her brother, who reaches out to grasp her elbow.

There’s an audible gasp of relief — when they spot a slash of sunlight breaking through the canopy of the forest — they see a clearing.

And their hopes are dashed when they see that it leads up to stone steps — manicured and even at the very least. The steps ascend up high — to a mansion at the top of of the hill.

“I’m so glad I didn’t wear heels,” Missandei says, from right behind him.

 

 

  
A doofy little shithead is waiting for them at the top with his arms crossed and his legs splayed out far apart, his face in a stupid arrogant smirk. Their group’s pace has slowed considerably — they are sweating and exhausted from the impromptu hike. And so it takes long minutes from when they actually see him to when they are actually within earshot. The whole time, their idiot host doesn’t budge. He doesn’t make a move to walk over and meet them halfway.

When they are close enough, he says, “Hello, everyone! I’m Ramsay Bolton, and welcome, to —”

“You need to shut the fuck up,” says a voice from near the front. It takes Grey a bit to see that it’s Jaime Lannister. “What the fuck did you just make us do? What was the fucking _point,_ asshole? Fucking install an escalator or something. Jesus.”

“You’ll have to excuse my brother,” another voice — Tyrion Lannister — breaks in. “His blood sugar is low. It makes him cranky.”

It’s hard to imagine that these two are part of the cunning family that stole from Daenerys’ family.

 

 

  
They are all tensely sitting in a massive room — a room where guests are greeted, apparently. Refreshments in the form of hot towels and bottles of water are being passed around by a housekeeper. Grey waves her off when she tries to offer him one. She takes it to mean that he doesn’t want water either, so she leaves.

He hears plastic crack — and he sees Missandei mutely offer some of her water to him. He takes it — he figures it’s smart for him to stay hydrated and comfortable and energetic — just in case. He gulps down nearly half of the bottle, plastic crunching underneath his hand as he sucks it all up.

Plastic crunches again, when the pressure is released. He hands the bottle back to her. She carefully drinks from it — much quieter and much less frantic than he did.

He re-assesses all the security in the room. The Lannisters have two — one each, he supposes. Both ex-military like he is. The Starks only have the one giant woman — which seems really bizarre to him, but he knows better than to make assumptions and underestimate people. But then, the Starks aren’t in the same echelon as the Lannisters, which may be reflected in their detail. She might be local law enforcement. He’s not sure just from looks alone.

The Greyjoys have no security. But they are very close with the Starks so they could be piggybacking on the giant woman.

And the Khal has one very old man.

 

 

  
Missandei connects her portable keyboard to her tablet and starts furiously typing after Roose Bolton and a man in glasses enter the room, standing next to Ramsay. She’s also recording everything on her mic, but better safe than sorry. Equipment fails sometimes.

“First of all,” Roose says, “thank you all ever so much for making the trip out here. I know many of you have traveled from very far away, just to get a look at the work we are doing. I want you to know that we sincerely appreciate your interest — and — hopefully, we’ll soon have a chance to appreciate your support. Now, I know you have many questions about the nature of the work we are doing here — and I tell you, it’s very exciting work indeed. It is work that will change the world. It is work that you will be able to be a part of — this is the ground floor. But before I get too ahead of myself, I would like to introduce you all to the genius who is the visionary behind all of this.” Roose gestures to the man in glasses. “This is Dr. Qyburn. He came to me nearly ten years ago — and our conversation started with one simple question: What if we can make it so we can live forever?”

Dr. Qyburn takes a small step forward. “It’s not as fantastical as it sounds.” He straightens and raises his face up. “In fact, immortality is not fantastical at all.”

 

 

  
Again — these people have an insane hard-on for dramatics — because their group is being led through more doorways, more hallways, down more stairwells, and it’s getting progressively darker, more foreboding. He’s keeping Daenerys and Missandei as close to him as possible. He can feel their body heat and their general anxiety buzzing against his back.

The lab is unexpectedly cold — it’s like stepping into a refrigerator. He can see his breath. And he can hear Missandei take a sharp breath behind him. She stumbles into him a little bit, when they suddenly stop. They are toward the back, so they can’t see much. There’s hushed whispering as they start to disperse and clear space so that they all have a nice vantage point of all the action.

Another set of the lights flip on — blinding them momentarily — then — he's blinking away the dots — then — bodies — they see bodies — dead bodies? — three of them — what the ever-loving _fuck_ — floating in a large pool of icy blue water.

He’s unhearing as Qyburn drones excitedly in the background. All he hears is air whooshing past his ears. The thing is — he’s seen dead bodies before. He’s seen a lot of dead bodies before, to the point where he’s been desensitized. He has a certain expertise in this that is unique. And there is just something majorly _fucked_ up about _this_ — about this shit that he is looking at right now.

When the bodies twitch — when water splashes over the edge of the glass tank, Missandei gasps. Her hand reaches out and grabs ahold of his — and in his surprise — he holds on tightly. He uses his other arm to gently push Daenerys completely behind him.

 

 

 


	2. two

 

 

 

Missandei tries to get him to sit down at the table — Dany also signals for him to come over — but Grey insistently hangs back, his shoulders pressed against the wall, watching impassively as dinner gets served in synchronicity, by a flurry of unnamed Bolton staff members.

The Starks have set a bit of a precedence, in having their security sit at the table, eating with them. She looks deeply uncomfortable and reluctant to be there. Her blue eyes also keeps casting glances to the far wall, where Grey is hanging around with the Lannister detail. Jorah — the Khal’s guy — is by himself in another corner, unsurprisingly ostracized — both for the unconventionality of his appearance and also for being associated with the foreigner, the outsider.

Missandei supposes that’s why the Starks are having their security woman sit with them — they are sparing her from being ostracised by the good ol’ boys club. This betrays a certain kind of familiarity in their relationship with her. This woman isn’t just their hired help — she’s more. As Brienne — the woman — looks toward Grey and the Lannister detail, her eyes don’t reflect envy. Rather, she’s also looking at them warily, with distrust, with her lips pressed in a thin line. Missandei doesn’t really blame her. The Lannisters have a certain notoriety. She just wonders if Grey is a curious interest, just due to current association — or if there is something more at work.

No one is hungry. No one has an appetite after what they have seen.

“I like your haircut,” Jaime Lannister says suddenly, orienting his gaze to Brienne. “Tell me, who is your barber?” Her eyes harden into glints of ice at that, but she says nothing.

Robb Stark drops his fork on his plate, the loud clank of it making the rest of the table jump to attention. His eyes flash to Jaime. “Watch yourself.”

“Do you feel good about it?” Jaime says to Robb. “Having such a handsome fellow guarding your sisters? What exactly happens under the cover of night?”

Arya gets to her feet — just about the same height standing as Jaime sitting. She looks at him in disgust from her side of the table. “I’m going to fucking punch you, sister-fucker,” she announces.

Missandei is stunned when Arya actually takes a swing at him — Jaime is too, because her fist would’ve made contact if he didn’t swing his head away at the very last moment. Arya’s other brother, Jon, reaches out then, grabbing ahold of her fist in his hand, as she winds up for a second attempt at Jaime’s face.

“You Starks are so violent,” Jaime says, his cold voice disguised in this falsely amused and light tone. And then he says, “Is no one really going to talk about the _undead_ in the _fucking_ basement of this _fucking_ insane house? How are we not constantly calling attention to this _fucking insanity?”_

“Oh, Jaime,” Tyrion says. “You’re making people so uncomfortable with your little truth nuggets.”

“That will be the name of my podcast,” Jaime deadpans. He mimes a billboard. “Jaime’s Truth Nuggets.”

“Can I be your first guest star?” Tyrion asks.

“Sure. We can talk about —”

“— the fucking undead in the fucking basement of this fucking house.”

“Yep. Yep.”

 

 

  
Bronn — Tyrion Lannister’s man — smirks at him with arms crossed over his chest, his mouth chewing noisily on gum. Bronn has told Grey — in a lull — that he’s been trying to quit smoking. Smoking is bad. Smoking kills. Bronn told him that he hasn’t survived the atrocious shit he has witnessed, only to keel over from lung cancer.

“Brother,” Bronn says to Grey. “Do you have an on switch? Hello? Is there anyone home?”

Grey swats Bronn’s hand away like it’s an annoying gnat.

Bronn grunts. “Shit, you’re about as fun as he is.” Bronn tilts his head over to one of their own — Sandor Clegane — who is only standing three feet away from them, but who is giving no indication that he even hears them. “What is even the point in waking up in the morning if you can’t find a little bit of joy in your work?” Bronn asks. “A little bit of fun won’t kill you —”

Bronn doesn’t get to finish his thought because Grey catches something out of the corner of his eye and suddenly starts booking it to the dining table.

 

 

  
She watches — stunned — as Grey kicks in the ankle of a Bolton staff member and takes the man down the ground. The scream that comes out of the man’s mouth sounds human, but also a little bit off, at the same time. Grey’s knee presses into the spine of the stationary man and his hand is clamped tightly over the man’s forearm. A shiny knife is reflecting the overhead chandelier.

“He was about to cut the chicken!” Theon says, in a daze.

Grey only releases one word. “No.”

“What the fuck, dude!”

It takes them all a bit before they hear the slow clapping, above the din of commotion. They quiet their panic and look back at the entry way that connects the dining room to the kitchen. Ramsay has a shit-eating grin on his face, and he is slowly smacking his hands together. To Grey, he says, “Bravo. How did you know?”

 

 

  
Grey stares down at the stationary body — stunned. He actually hadn’t meant to break bone at all. He had only meant to shock and surprise and get the man down on the ground. It was actually really shocking to him, when bone snapped. His body is tight and concerned, and he’s forcing himself to stay put — just for the time being.

And then Ramsay offers Grey his hand, smiling down at him, the yellow chandelier lights winking behind Ramsay’s shadowed face.

Nope.

Grey pushes himself to his feet without Ramsay’s aid.

 

 

  
Both of his hands are on the backs of Daenerys’ and Missandei’s chairs — just in this aggressive disbelief, as Ramsay explains to them that all household staff members on their compound are actually Walkers — the name that they have dubbed this Frankensteinian bullshit. He cannot even tell if it’s a fucking joke or not, when Ramsay says that it sure beats hiring actual staff and having to pay them and give them vacation time and sick days.

That is not a fucking joke that Grey appreciates at all.

All eyes are looking at him expectantly — even Missandei and Daenerys are twisted around in their seats. He realizes that he was asked questions. He can guess which one. He says, “There was something about his movement that rang false to me. It looked programmed.” He turns and glances at Bronn, who is now ultra serious. It was Bronn’s comment about him having an on switch that illuminated these connections he was already making in his mind, subconsciously.

“Most people can’t tell,” Ramsay says, eyes narrowing at him imperceptibly. “If I put them in a line-up with real people and gave you a loaded gun, how confident would you be, in putting a bullet in between only the eyes of Walkers?”

“What the fuck kind of messed up question is that?” Yara says.

 

 

  
As he noisily chews on a chicken drumstick, Ramsay tells them that the flights of Walkers are named by color, each flight incrementally more advanced than the ones that came before. Blacks were their very first — reanimated corpses with very rudimentary abilities — basically good for nothing other than living and breathing. Just pets. They burned up the Black models real quick, because they didn’t have much applicable uses. Then came the Brown flight — manual laborers. Pure physical human power — trench diggers. The Purple flight — rudimentary builders. Oranges — household staff. Ramsay gestures to the people that have been serving them, smiling grandly. Pointing at Grey, he says, “other than him, none of you were the wiser, were you?” Ramsay tells them that Oranges are also comfort women and men, but mostly women.

Missandei recoils in distaste at that — at the concept and also at the pathetic euphemism.

Reds are where independent thinking comes into play. Ramsay glances at Missandei, before he says that Reds can be secretaries, office workers, their wives, whatever. Blues are strategic thinkers — and fighters. Sandor looks like he wants to beat the shit out of Ramsay at the insinuation, when he tells the three of them — Grey, Sandor, and Bronn — that the Blues are essentially like them.

Jaime rolls his eyes. “And the Whites?” he asks sarcastically.

Ramsay smiles. He says, “They are the immortals. They are you. And they are me.”

 

 

  
When Roose comes into the room, they are all shouting at each other — but mostly at Ramsay, asking him what the fuck result he expected, when he invited them all to this godforsaken hellhole? Did he expect them all to fucking start outbidding each other, to get their hands on some brand new fucking slaves?

“It’s so easy to have principles and scruples,” Roose says, with a subtle smile on his face, “when the plain truth is laid out so cleanly and so baldly. But we all know none of us are perfect entities. We all know what it took to gain wealth. We all know what it takes to keep wealth. You would just prefer for the subjugation to be hidden under ten more layers, so you don’t have to be constantly reminded of what you are already doing. That is the only difference.” He sips his water.

“Where are you getting all of these _bodies,_ Bolton?” Robb asks.

“I know you have a lot of questions — and we’d love to answer them. But tomorrow. For now, try and enjoy the rest of your evening.”

 

 

  
Grey tells them that it’s too far and entirely too dangerous, to make the trek back to the yacht in the middle of the night, but they are fucking leaving first thing in the morning. This is some insane bullshit that they will not be a part of.

Daenerys is carrying tension in her shoulders as she says, “We’re not leaving early.”

Missandei has never seen Grey and Daenerys argue. She freezes in her spot.

“We _are,”_ Grey says.

“What they are doing is wrong,” Dany says.

_“Yeah.”_

“These are people,” Dany says. “If they breathe, if they think, if they can make choices — they are people.”

Grey stiffens. But he doesn’t say anything.

“If we leave, we lose access. We will get shut out.”

 

 

  
He doesn’t feel comfortable sleeping in a separate room after what he has seen and what he has heard. Daenerys is upset with him. Missandei’s room has an adjoining door to Daenerys’ room. And Missandei is too soft and too prone to giving him the benefit of a doubt — this is why he pushes into her room and suggests to her that it’s going to be safest if he stays in her room with her.

When her eyes widen, he clarifies that she can sleep in bed. He’ll keep watch in a chair. He loosens his tie and sweeps his suit jacket over the back of the fabric covered arm chair. He orients the chair so that it’s facing the bedroom door. And then he moves a desk over so that it’s right beside him. He unholsters his gun, snaps the safety, and loads a round. He places it on the desk, within easy reach.

She has changed in the bathroom. She’s lying down with her head at the foot of the bed — so she can see him — with the blankets swept over her legs.

“Do you feel safe with me?” he asks in the dark.

“Usually,” she admits. “Most of the time.

“Right now?”

“You’re being a bit intense. But yeah, I feel safe with you right now.”

The answer is satisfying to him. He twists his head to look her in the face — through the dark.

 

 

  
Her gut is flip-flopping, over and over onto itself. Her heart is slamming behind her ribcage. She cannot possibly sleep. Things are too fucking, bizarre to just sleep through. They’ve been quiet for nearly half an hour. He must know that she’s not sleeping.

She raises herself up into sitting position. She whispers his name — and in the dim light, she can see his head tilt toward her.

She shuffles over to him, in her sleep clothes, which are just an oversized t-shirt and a pair of black lounge pants. It’s only odd because the only thing he ever sees her wear are her work clothes. It’d be the same thing — but in reverse — if she happened to catch him in a pair of jeans.

She stands in front of him. Her heart is just thick in her throat. And she knows that part of is the entire stress of this situation. The other part is that . . . she just kind of has a crush on him. It was something that developed quickly, soon after he was hired on. She just thinks he’s really, really cool. And really, really smart. And he’s really, really nice to look at. It’s really that simple. He probably knows that she has a stupid crush on him like a fourteen-year-old, too. It’s just something they ignore and something she suppresses, because they are colleagues. It’s stupid. She doesn’t even know him. Not really. She has a crush on some illusion. And he’s given her no indication that he returns the interest at all. And — they work together.

“Hey,” she says quietly. “Show me how to use one of those,” she says, pointing her chin to his gun.

He raises a brow.

 

 

  
The lesson ends up being quick and vague — because he doesn’t take her seriously at all. She sheepishly admits that she doesn’t know anything about guns. They seem very, very scary. He tells her that they are. Very, very scary.

“What if —” She clears her throat. “What if we take turns? What if you go to sleep for a while, and I’ll hang around here. I won’t try to shoot anybody, don’t worry. I’ll just scream if the doors open, and I’ll wake you up. Is that okay?”

He sighs. “Missandei . . .”

“I’m not sleeping anyway,” she says. “You’ve heard me tossing and turning for a while now.”

 

 

  
When he leaves Missandei’s room the next day to quickly go grab a change of clothes from his room, he runs into Theon, who is talking to his sister about how he is not at all interested in fucking a reanimated corpse — there is just something really fucked up about that.

His sister is saying, “What if you can’t even tell, though?”

Theon and Yara catches Grey as he closes Missandei’s door, the lock turned, behind him.

“Morning,” Theon says pleasantly, giving him a quick smile. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to talk so loudly. And uh — no hard feelings? I didn’t realize. You know?” Theon casts his eyes to Missandei’s closed door.

 

 

  
Over breakfast, Missandei quietly tells Grey and Daenerys that the Khal is faking his language barrier. He doesn’t need Jorah as translator. Jorah’s Dothraki is actually only adequate, just merely passable. The Khal definitely speaks the common tongue. Missandei can tell, based on watching the way he listens — as they all talk around him.

 

 

  
They are outside on the lawn right behind the mansion. Dr. Qyburn tells them that just like how beef is graded, so are human remains. Marred and damaged remains go to Oranges. And older remains go to Browns and Purples. He describes them as supernovas — stars that burn brightly and briefly, before dying into dust. The best, the fresh and the cleanest and the most intact remains goes to Whites, Reds, and Blues.

They collectively stiffen when a formidable figure walks onto the field — a ways down. Ramsay finds their dumbfounded expressions funny — or he must — because that fucking idiot laughs like a lunatic.

“Would any of you like to volunteer your men —” Ramsay shifts a patronizing eye to Brienne, “— or your woman against our Robert Strong?”

Standing next to him, Bronn snorts. “Nope,” he says loudly. “You ain’t paying me enough for this shit,” he says, addressing the last bit to Tyrion.

“We don’t have to pay Robert Strong at all,” Ramsay says winningly. “He is just happy to be alive and to be doing what he does best.”

“That does beg an important question,” Tyrion says to Ramsay. “What, in the holy fuck, is stopping your man from bashing your stupid face in?”

Ramsay doesn’t even have the awareness to look offended. He says, “He is programmed. He lives to serve me and only me.”

“So there’s no free will,” Daenerys says.

“Free will is an illusion,” Qyburn says.

“Oh God,” Arya interjects under her breath so that only the people in her immediate vicinity can hear her — this includes Missandei. “Shut up, you psycho.”

 

 

  
They may come from disparate backgrounds and disciplines — different walks of life — but one thing that they do agree on is that none of them are pets or sideshows or performing monkeys. So nobody, not Jorah, not Brienne, not Grey, not Sandor, not Bronn — none of them want to get their ass beaten by a fucking massive zombie corpse just for the fucking hell of it. Sandor, in particular, is just full-on pissed at the very thought.

 

 

  
The demonstration consists of Robert Strong living up to his name and breaking apart a reinforced, solid wooden door into splinters. Missandei can’t help but notice the way Tyrion’s eyes glint, watching the spectacle. Missandei also watches Daenerys — wondering just how expendable some of them — the ones without family names — are quickly becoming. Just over the course of a weekend.

 

 

  
“Hey,” Grey says, kicking out a stool as Brienne walks by with a plate of food.

She pauses, staring down at his gesture. And — as if she’s operating completely against her better judgement — she stiffly steps over the stool before setting her plate down on the table, before taking a seat.

They eat together in silence, sitting side by side, both packing heat against their bones.

“No matter what anyone says, just know that you are too pretty for him.” The remark was deliberately targeted at Grey. Brienne’s water glass is halfway to her mouth before she suddenly changes course with it. She swiftly shoots her hand out, distracting Jaime with the splash of water before the heavy glass cup comes crashing down on his plate of food. She slams his plate right out of his hands. It lands face down on his feet, the ceramic breaking in half cleanly when it hits the floor.

“Are you done yet?” Brienne asks him dully, staring at him devoid of emotion. “Are you done trying to be clever and amusing?”

Jaime grins. “Never.”

“God, get lost, idiot.”

“I’m only leaving because I have to change my shoes, beautiful.” Jaime shrugs, leaving the mess on the ground. “I owe ya one.”

After Jaime is gone, Brienne places her messy cup — smeared with mustard and a bit of lettuce, which she picks off and folds into her napkin — back on the table. Grey mutely takes his own glass and pours half of his water into hers. Maybe struck with gratitude — or just because she’s frustrated — she sighs raggedly and confesses something to him. She says, “I really want to shoot him in his fucking stupid smug face.”

“Most of us do,” Grey mutters. “Including Clegane, I am pretty sure.”

 

 

 

 


	3. three

 

 

 

It becomes harder and harder to hold her tongue, as the day wears on. She smooths back her hair with the tips of her fingers, stuffing the loose, curly tendrils back into the tight bun held together with a band and pins, at the crown of her head — as Tyrion continues talking to her. He has this . . . this extremely obnoxious tendency to patronizingly mansplain to her like she’s an idiot. Missandei has no idea how she got caught in a debate of morals and ethics with him. He just randomly hit her in a sore spot, when she was walking by.

“It’s victimless,” he says to her. “People will have sex — you can’t stop certain people from having sex with whomever they want. Doesn’t it make sense, to offer an . . . outlet to certain populations? Instead of say . . . forcing sex on a child, a pedophile could have sex with an already-dead Orange walker that resembles a child. They then have an outlet for their disease. Now, doesn’t that spare an actual human child unimaginable trauma and terror? Won’t this potentially save lives?”

God, she wants to kick his face in. He is so disgusting. “I feel sorry for your whores,” she tells him coldly.

“Don’t,” he says lightly. “I treat them very nicely.”

 

 

  
The Boltons run down all the potential advantages — fewer deaths in war. Fewer deaths in general. Have a natural disaster? Send in Blue Walkers to retrieve victims. Have the plans and materials to build low-income housing but short on the most expensive bit — labor? Send in Purple Walkers. Have lonely, aging parents riddled with dementia who need round-the-clock care? Send in an Orange Walker.

The cost is front-loaded — no salaries, no health insurance, no inflation. Just a one-time investment for potentially decades of pay-off.

Roose is speaking directly to Daenerys here. All of them have their soft bits to be exploited. Roose tells Daenerys that poverty proliferates not due to lack of money — if only it were that easy. But the hereditary nature of poverty cycles around lack of time. Time is a premium commodity. When an overextended, exhausted single mother can only plan for the hour, the day, at most the week — many costly mistakes creep into her life, due to her inability to make strategic long-term decisions to benefit her family. It’s a hole that with loose sides, dirt caving in, every time she tries to climb out.

“What if we can give these people the gift of time?” Roose says.

 

 

  
Grey, Missandei, Bronn, Sandor, and Brienne are not invited into the room when it comes time to talk about White Walkers. Only Jorah is in the room, because he apparently needs to translate for the Khal.

Missandei holds her tablet in her hand, resting it against her forearm as she walks up to him. He can read on her face — her thoughts — because he slowly shakes his head. And he quietly tells her that it’s not his job. It’s not his job to think. He follows orders — always has, always will. He quietly tells her that people like him — being careful not to verbally pull her alongside him, into the vortex — people like him aren’t politicians. They aren’t leaders. He’s not qualified.

She frowns. She’s disappointed in him. And she understands. She has the same concerns. And, looking at the grim faces of the others, Brienne, Sandor, and Bronn — perhaps they are being overly sensitive to this for reasons that are natural and human. Perhaps they are over-empathizing — which is strange, because it’s not what any of them are particularly known for.

Grey pushes himself off the wall when the doors to the library reopen.

The Khal pushes past all of them, demeanor rough and tight — like a scared animal that only knows how to be aggressive.

 

 

  
He’s so fucking glad it’s their last night at this stupid shitstain of a house. And he is displeased with Daenerys, due to the unexpected trajectory the weekend has taken. She had made a deliberate, flippant comment to him, after exiting the library. She said to him that maybe he will head her new security team. The implications of such a statement immediately settled into his brain. It’s nothing that he can easily forget. Perhaps for the first time in his life, he actually feels like he is at a crossroads.

Since a young age, he was preached unfailing obedience, first taught by his mother. She told him it was the key to their survival. She promised him that his trust in her would never be a misplaced trust. It was a promised that she did live up to. For this reason, the stages of his life has contained a certain predictability. He joined the military after high school for the same reasons that other 18-year-olds join the military. He wanted to travel — he had never been anywhere besides 10 miles out of the place where he grew up — it was not the place he was born — but it’s the place he invariably always goes back to. He also couldn’t afford college. There was a quid pro quo sort of promise — when it came to his deferred education. It’s something he hasn’t quite followed up on or cashed in on — because he found that he had a certain talent that nobody could have even conceived of.

He is prone to institutionalization, perhaps. He would’ve made a life out of it, perhaps — but his mom got sick. Or — she had always been sick for as long as he has been alive — longer — but they just didn’t discover it until he was already an adult. A doctor told him that his difficult birth — a C-section — could have been his saving grace.

Priorities can shift in a blink of an eye. Thoughts of college faded away. And he was gradually able to eke out a decent living in a job that gave him a week off every month, so that he could spend that time with his mother. It doesn’t leave him much time for anything more.

He catches a glimpse of her, nearly tripping spontaneously — rolling her ankle because she hadn’t been paying attention to where she was walking, because her nose was in her tablet. He sees her free hand fly out, using a wall to keep her balance. And then he sees her sort of look around in embarrassment, trying to see if anyone had seen her almost bite it.

He snaps his eyes down to the ground, clenching his jaw shut tightly, trying not to laugh.

 

 

  
Perhaps high off of whatever momentous bit of pact-making they had made behind closed doors, the evening turns jovial. The Lannisters quickly get drunk. Bronn doesn’t care — so he starts drinking, too. Sandor remains a silent sentinel. The Lannisters and Bronn are playing stupid word games, and she still feels a little bit burned from her earlier argument with Tyrion, so she ignores him and Jaime when they call out her name and beckon her to come over. She actually shudders with disgust, when she hears them beckoning for her. She often wonders what men like them see in women like her.

The door to the powder nearly slams right into her face, just as her hand touched the doorknob. Missandei blinks, stunned as she takes a step back, letting Sansa awkwardly exit the bathroom — face flushed red — with Ramsay following suit right after.

 

 

  
He touches his fingers to the rim of his glass of water. He usually prefers to drink out of a bottle — he has an inherent distrust in the openness of a glass. But he can acknowledge he has a certain . . . obsessiveness.

He watches as Brienne turns white — with rage — as Lannister drunkenly taunts her. Lannister has had it out for her — from the very get — and Grey can’t even begin to imagine, what is spurring him on, beyond a dark heart and too much power and a great awareness of the disparity in their stations in life. Grey imagines that Lannister is just being a fucking cunt, just because he _can_ and he is _bored_ and Brienne is an _easy target_. She’s also bound by a certain loyalty to the Starks and a sense of professionalism — so she won’t embarrass herself or them.

“Tell me,” Jaime says. “Are you a virgin?” He laughs. “You’d have to be. You don’t look like you would know the touch of a man. Unless you paid for it. You don’t look like the type to pay for it. Can’t afford to.”

Brienne stares resolutely ahead into dead space.

“That’s enough,” says Grey, raising the water glass to his mouth. “Go away,” he says, muttering into the glass. He himself is also bound by a certain code of behavior. He can’t beat the fucking pus out of Lannister in front of everyone, for instance. They all know this. This artificial system involving services rendered they have created sometimes just fucking sucks. It sucks up all of their fucking dignity and all of their agency sometimes.

“You gonna let your girlfriend speak to me like that?” Jaime says, ignoring Grey, directing the comment back at Brienne. “So rude. You guys are so rude.”

The fact that they are being fairly non-responsive seems to incense Jaime.

To Grey, he spits out, “Do you have to glue your eyes shut and break all the mirrors in the house, when you let him fuck you?”

 

 

  
She’s starving, especially after she spontaneously decided that she will not eat any food that the undead make. It’s too gross. She’s perhaps fifteen hours or so away from being back on the yacht, with access to food that she feels comfortable consuming. She thinks that she can last that long, if she can just get her hands on some sort of snack.

She’s in her room alone, digging around in her overnight bag — which had been carried from the boat to the house by unseen hands and legs — probably also undead.

Everything is tainted.

She just finds a tube of chapstick and some gum that has partially melted and gone sticky under the heat of the hike.

She freezes when she hears a knock on her door.

 

 

  
Grey holds up an apple that he stole for her — and she’s frozen in surprise. She asks him why he’s not with Daenerys. He tells her that Daenerys told him not to listen in — she told him to give her an hour to herself. Upon Missandei’s confused look, Grey tilts his head and he kind of shrugs out a wry smile. He tells her that Daenerys is in the Khal’s room. And — if the Khal happens to kill her — well, it’s not on Grey.

He holds out the apple to her, and he tells her that he washed it really well and everything. He reminds her that apples grow on trees.

“How did you know I was hungry?”

“I heard your stomach growling,” he admits. “Off and on. All day. And I noticed you’d only eat fruit since yesterday morning.”

“Your powers of observation are insane,” she says.

He grins. “So, I have a free hour,” he says.

 

 

  
God, he’s so cute. He is like, so adorable. His reflexes are amazing. Every time he slaps her hands — which is always — he’s constantly winning at this silly children’s game they are playing, sitting cross-legged on the floor of her room — every time he lightly hits the backs of her hands with the flat of his fingers, she feels a jolt of electric current. This isn’t helping her sad little hopeless crush at all. It’s actually making it stronger, making it grow into something tangible and real — something she can’t easily rationalize away. Her face is so hot. Because she’s so embarrassed over how bad she is at this game — and also at how pretty and kinda-long-for-a-guy his lashes are — and at how close she must be sitting, if she can make these observations about his lashes.

“What’s your favorite ice cream flavor?” she asks. This is another side game they are playing, a game of aimless questions.

“Is it boring if I say it’s vanilla?” he says, lightly laughing, his face turned down at their hands, hovering mid-air. “That’s actually my mom’s favorite. When I was younger, I would always beg her to buy the cooler flavors — or even just get chocolate once in awhile. But she has this brand and this kind that she always bought. I kind of developed a taste for it over time. And it was much, much later, when I realized that it was what she could afford — she was pretending it was her favorite and like it was the best so that I wouldn’t know what I was missing.” He suddenly flips his hand over and slaps her knuckles. “Anyway, vanilla is actually my favorite.”

Missandei is just dying over this. Over this entire story, over his entire demeanor, over his thoughtfulness in answering a silly mean-nothing question. She is just dying.

After he checks his watch, he frowns. He says, “Oh, crap. I have to go.”

She almost makes the grabby hands at him, as he stands up and flips his jacket over his back and smoothly slips his arms, both at the same time, into the sleeves. Freaking unreal.

“That was fun,” he says, shrugging into his jacket.

“It was.” She nods. She bites down on her bottom lip for a moment, kind of mustering up some courage. “Would you want to hang out sometime —” She’s already mentally kicking herself for being so dorky and so vague. “After we get back home? Outside of work, I mean. I mean, once we’re settled back in and stuff.” She does a weak little fist pump. “And beat jet lag.” She almosts says nevermind, it’s obviously such a dumb idea, and she was obviously just joking around.

He laughs. “Okay,” he says — in this conspiratorial way. “Sure. That sounds nice.”

 

 

  
Their energy shifts. It’s almost imperceptible. But he wakes up the next morning and immediately starts thinking about her. He’s being so stupidly hopeful. And it doesn’t help to shake that feeling away, when he runs into her in the hallway, as they’re packing up to leave. It’s so awkward — they are so awkward — but not in an unpleasant way. She hugs her tablet to her chest and she casts her eyes immediately to the ground, smiling down at the floor before she corrects herself and looks up at his face — only for a split second before she shoots her eyes out in another direction.

His heart feels like it’s permanently lodged in his throat these days — around her. There have been a lot of reasons he’s given himself, about why he has to deny himself this. His reasons span from the trivial — he doesn’t have the time, he’s under-experienced so he wouldn’t even know how to go about taking her on a date — to the grave. His life is a mess. He’s a mess. He might not have the capacity to do this. They work together, and in all likelihood, when this all goes really, really south — they’d have to keep seeing each other and they’d keep having to work in close quarters.

“Morning,” he says, pushing back his amusement over how she can’t seem to look him in the face. “Sleep well?”

She shakes her head real quickly. “Nope. Not until we get off this island.”

“I hear ya.”

 

 

  
The skies are nearly white, covered in clouds. And she has to shield her eyes with her hand, from the misty waters that splash up near the edge, where she’s standing at the railing, one hand gripping it tightly. She watches as the island incrementally shrinks and shrinks, until it’s completely gone from the view.

She and Dany spend some of the long ride back to the mainland working. They are drafting out a press release.

 

 

  
The press conference is on in the background — stations have been replaying and replaying it, over and over — as he numbly tells the front desk staff at the hospital his name and why he is there. The messages were about three hours delayed, as he was stuck in the purgatory of the yacht, with no data, no phone service. The voice messages had brought his phone to life when they were close to home again. He had rushed over to the facility.

He was told that she had surrounded herself with pictures of him.

And he is told — to take the time he needs, in making a decision. He numbly listens to a doctor tell him the very grim facts — and all he can feel is anger, that she didn’t even wait to say goodbye to him — his anger disguising just how this is just breaking him. He tells himself that he is entirely too young to be dealing with this already. He can’t believe what a loss this is.

He permits them to take her off life support less than a day later.

Later, Daenerys looks at him with pity — and also like he is being rash because he is emotional — when he puts in his notice. She asks him what he will do now. In a thick fog, he tells her he might try to go to school.

Missandei starts crying right away — when she sees him. And he cannot even handle her feelings. He lets her hold him — it’s the closest they have ever physically been. She clutches onto him like she can save him with her love. And he tells her that it’s just too late for him. And for them. Time sucks.

He packs up his things — he sells all of his things — he throws away all of his mother’s things.

He doesn’t see any of them again for years.

 

 

 

 

  
_**SIX YEARS LATER** _

 

Dany is made to kneel — Missandei is already on the ground, found guilty by association alone. Dany is called a pretender — and she is found fit to stand trial — this farcical thing that they’ve already witnessed the Greyjoys, the Starks, and the Lannisters go through. The Khal has been missing — at-large for four years already.

They are flanked by Blues, standing guard. The Reds are the gatekeepers, passing along messages to rest of them from the Whites — which are largely unseen. The Reds tell Dany that she is being charged with crimes against humanity. 

 

 

 

 


	4. four

 

 

 

After Daenerys is found guilty of crimes against humanity in front of the tribunal, as she awaits her sentencing — Missandei gets ripped away, tagged and inventoried as part of Dany’s assets that will be dispersed as reparations for the countless number of people that Dany has killed and has allowed to die. She doesn’t even get to say goodbye to Dany. It’s just chaotic as they get physically separated, as she hears Dany call out her name in a shout, telling them to stop, as she hears Dany call out an apology — but she’s already listened to enough of Dany’s regrets, over the years.

She is shackled at the feet and by her wrists — then she is shoved into a cage, housed in a dark shipping container. The floor of the cage is metal — steel — and gritty. There’s a slimy, sticky spot in the far corner, a hollow bucket that stinks of dried human waste, and the sharp prickles of unsmooth bars. In the not-too-far distance, she hears wailing, coughing, breathing. The room is hot and humid — radiating with human body heat.

Her whole body is shaking — from adrenaline. Her trembling hands are still feeling around frantically in the dark. The back of one hits a smooth — plastic? — cup. She picks it up in the dark. It’s heavy with liquid.

Missandei swallows, trying to coat her mouth in saliva.

“I wouldn’t drink that, if I were you,” a soft voice on her right says. “It’s been sitting there for as long as I’ve been here. No one has come in to change the water. No one has emptied the shit pots, either. I don’t think they’re going to. We just have to wait to see where we end up.”

 

 

  
He wakes up a little bit late — the sun already high in the sky. He sits up in bed — already sweating — his shirt sticking to his body as a light breeze kind of gives him the smallest bit of relief against the heat. He gets out of bed and squats down at the hearth in the middle of the room — temperatures drop severely at night. He quietly starts up a fire again — there’s a hole in the ceiling for the smoke to escape out of, and a small room lined with clay tiles, to keep most of the rain out.

He goes outside to the well — this house was built decades ago to house some sort of environmental research team. That’s why there are remnants of interesting things on the property. That’s why there is a well and a rudimentary septic system. That’s why there are a few working solar panels. He put in the cistern himself, to supplement the groundwater — to maintain the plants in the greenhouse during the colder months and for the garden in the warmer months.

After he puts a bit of water in a kettle and starts boiling it over the hearth, he goes back outside and walks west. His bladder is insistent and heavy in his gut. He lives so remotely that he can walk for hours before he comes across another house.

He’s still peeing, when he sees a person in the distance, walking toward him. The image looking like a mirage, with the distorting wind, the dusty clouds of sand in the air. Then he sees a smaller person — a woman — also on the horizon.

 

 

  
She finds a corner she’s comfortable in and she rests her head against the bars, closing her eyes. It makes no difference if her eyes are closed or if they are open — she can’t see a thing. The container was picked up by machinery and is being moved. She stopped being so fucking interested in the goings-on of the outside world — two days ago. She is incredibly weak and incredibly feverish — her wrists sore and continually breaking open in a rotting flesh wound.

In the two days since she was sold, she has learned that not everyone in the container is caged. Not everyone is shackled. In fact, most aren’t. Most are just locked in there. Her fellow caged companion — he tells her his name is Joshua, but she knows he is lying — has remarked that it must make them extra special — or extra dangerous to the person they are being delivered to. In turn, she has told him that her name is Alice. In a relatively short amount of time, she has become very protective of who she actually is.

He’s been talking to her — to stop her from descending too far down into sickness. She kept telling him she wants to just drink the water — until he had goaded her enough to hit the tumbler of water with her fist, spilling the liquid, taking away temptation. Now, she is telling him that she just wants to die — because she has already lost _everything._ She tells him that she never thought she’d be locked in a cage like a fucking animal — and she had broken a promise to herself. She had promised herself she’d never allow this to happen to people like her again. She wishes she just had a blade or a broken piece of glass so that she can just end this misery. He says nothing to that — just that he thinks that they’re almost at the end of their journey together — doesn’t she want to see the light one more time at least?

And she does. She actually does.

 

 

  
He hasn’t seen her in years — he hasn’t thought about her in years — but he recognizes her right away. She’s unmistakable.

He loosens his grip on the rifle and lowers it. “Hi,” he says.

“You’re an extremely hard person to find,” Brienne says. “I’ve been looking for you, for a while.”

Yara Greyjoy vaguely waves her hand in the air. “I’m just here for moral support,” she says — face devoid of humor. He sees the gun at her hip. “And also as backup, in case you have lost your fucking mind, since we’ve last seen each other.”

 

 

  
One of the disembodied voices around her — male — has become braver and braver, surer and surer, the more time passes. She can hear him speaking in a Low Valyrian dialect, urging those around them in the dark, to launch a mutiny — to kill their slavers when the doors to the shipping container opens. He tells them that the people who are in charge of their transportation are just underpaid lackeys — or Orange Walkers. They have the element of surprise on their side. They must also outnumber those on the outside. And even if they didn’t — even if he is completely wrong about what the outside looks like, don’t they just owe it to themselves and their children — left behind, also imprisoned here — don’t they owe it to their children to fight for their freedom?

The container comes to a bone-jarring, metal-crunching stop. Missandei reaches out to steady herself, catching her palm on a sharp edge of her cage. The sting is immediate, and she knows she has cut herself.

Her heart is thudding against her ribcage, as they all hold their breath, as they wait for long minutes as they listen to the noise of shuffling and the sound of human voices — directly outside the container.

When the heavy doors creak open — after days of being in the dark — the sunlight burns her retinas and makes her eyes sting — blinding her in a way that is painful.

She jumps in her spot, with tears leaking out of her burning eyes — when the gunshot unexpectedly cracks — a warm wet splash hits her in the face — it has to be blood — the gunshot was too close to her ears — which are now ringing. And her tears take a turn — now she’s just beyond sad and beyond scared. She blinks at the light, trying to fight to see — she can smell the coppery blood. And she’s kicking herself — because maybe she had been foolish, to wait for this before dying.

The sound of her cage opening is far away. She is still rapidly blinking, seeing amorphous blobs — and she’s roughly grabbed and thrown to the ground. She accidentally sucks in a cloud of dust and starts coughing violently, gagging when salty blood runs into her mouth. She doesn’t know what she’s thinking, when she tries to push herself to her feet — but she gets slapped back down the ground again — the dirt pushing into her stinging hand wound. In Low Valyrian — an Astapori accent — she can make out their shouting, telling everyone to stay the fuck down or they will swiftly be killed without a thought.

She stays on the ground — but she turns her head so that she can breathe. She hears one of the guards — Walkers or people, it’s so hard to tell — saying that they smell like shit.

They have been told that Walkers weren’t made to smell or to taste or crave sex — they lack ambition and empathy. The Boltons originally sold it as: Walkers aren’t human.

The Walkers have quickly adapted — they have learned to smell, taste, and want sex. Or they are excellent mimics.

When the tears and the sun has cleared out of her eyes — just enough — she finally sees him in the commotion. He was her cage companion. He’s shackled and pressed into the ground by a booted foot.

Jaime Lannister looks stunned to see her, too.

 

 

  
Grey has these memories from when he was a child, from when his mom used to entertain her guests in the front room. She was meticulous with place settings, every bit of dishware had its place and there was this regalness to the ritual of pouring coffee and tea. She was also meticulous with him. She trained him to be quiet — to be invisible. He remembers the earliest lessons, when he was too young and too undisciplined — and how she used to make him kneel and face the wall, angrily beating him with a switch until he bled because she was so upset that he was being loud.

And always after, she used to descend into sobs. At some point, he started to assure her that it was okay — that he understood — and she didn’t have to be so sad over it. She used to tell him that she had to hurt him — as she held his face in her hands — because she loved him more than anything else in the world — more than _anything._

He has these weird habits and ticks — from childhood. It’s some perversion, when he invites Brienne and Yara into his one-room house. The kettle he put on is screaming hot, and he breaks apart some dried herbs from his garden — in between his thumb and his forefinger — before he runs hot water into the cups.

“Whoa,” Yara says, reaching out to take her cup when he holds it out to her. “Fancy.”

“Are you trying to poison us?” Brienne asks bluntly.

“No,” he says.

She seems satisfied enough with that response. She raises the steaming up to her face and smells it, her large mouth twisting into a frown. And belying her expression, she says, “This smells nice.”

“Why are you here?” he interjects. “What are you doing here?”

Yara kind of grins. “We’re getting the ol’ team back together.”

 

 

  
She sees Jaime fall hard on his knees, when he gets kicked in the back, grunting as he shakily straightens himself back up into kneeling position. She doesn’t want the same sort of treatment — though she supposes they wouldn’t because she’s a woman, and the nature of these things is different for women. But when the hands fall back on her body, indulgently squeezing her flesh, sneaking under her clothes to touch her stomach, her back, her breasts, her bottom, the area between her legs — she doesn’t want to get hit — but it’s still instinctual. She thrashes and strikes the hands away, tries to hit back at them — with her arms shackled behind her back, just finding it impossible to see straight through her rage. Her neck cracks and fresh blood splashes on her tongue as she falls to the ground, with the force of the blow.

In Low Valyrian, she hears a man chastise another man for hitting her so hard. He says that the master wants her to stay pretty. Bile claws up her throat. And she’s so distracted by her own grief — so she gets hit again, this time in the arm. She is told to have some respect. She straightens on her knees, crosses her hands behind her back, and dips her head down into a bow. She watches as drops of blood from her cut lip drips onto the ground.

 

 

  
Brienne tells him that Catelyn Stark wants her daughter Sansa back. He tells Brienne that he cannot give less of a fuck about what Catelyn Stark wants. He has no loyalty to them or to anyone anymore. Why is he being sought out?

“You know what’s going with Daenerys, don’t you?”

He shakes his head resolutely. He actually doesn’t know what’s going on. He’s been so isolated. He doesn’t even want to know anymore.

Brienne tells him that Daenerys was found guilty of crimes against humanity, just like the Lannisters, just like the Greyjoys — Brienne glances at Yara, whose face remains blank — just like the Starks. Daenerys’ immense family wealth is being dismantled and broken down, redispersed, in a process called reparations. Daenerys was the very last of them — the last hold-out. The old way, the old life, the old system — it is completely gone now. And in place of it — is _this._

“It’s egalitarian,” Yara bites out. “We’re going extinct. Or, we’re already extinct. And none of the old families have any fucking assets left to give you — for services rendered.” She clenches her jaw, blinking rapidly. “But a woman wants her daughter back. And I want my brother back. And you are one of the few people that _knows_ that fucking island. We are all _dying_ anyway. We are all _dead_  already _._ What is there left to lose?”

 

 

  
She and Jaime are efficiently stripped naked — they are constantly being told that they smell like shit. The water is too hot — it burns and the wound on her hand feels like it’s being cauterize, as female hands roughly lift her and shove her into the tub. Missandei loses her footing and falls backwards, splashing and sputtering. Her chains are still on — and they are heavy — so it’s this impossible endeavor, to get back into sitting position.

When she gasps in a piercingly hot gulp of water and tries cough it out — it suddenly hits her.

Why is she working so hard to stay alive?

Why?

Missandei stops fighting the hands in the hot water. She lets the weight of the chains pull her down, under. It’s still human nature — to want to hold her breath to the last moment, until she can’t anymore. She tells herself she only has minutes to come to terms with this — to achieve any sort of peace before she goes. Sound is muffled in her ears. Her head is creating its own kind of white noise. The pain in her wrists and her hand and her head is numb and throbbing.

She starts coughing spastically and loudly, when hands roughly grab her and pull her back up to the surface. She’s fighting against them, and they are slamming their fists against her bare back, trying to expel water from her lungs.

“Stop!”

It’s the first time she’s heard the Common Tongue in a while.

She blinks through the water and sees Jaime — who has been watching her try and fail at killing herself.

“You didn’t drink the water,” he says to her loudly. “You’ve kept yourself alive for this long. There’s a part of you that is still capable of fighting and still wants to fight. _Don’t_ give up.” He holds up his arm.

It’s the first time she realizes that he has lost a hand.

 

 

  
He asks them where Sandor is — and where is Bronn? And Jorah? Are they stupid enough to sign up for a suicide mission for no reason at all?

Yara tells him that Jorah is so fucking old — probably dead from natural causes. And — with a sharp glance from Brienne, Yara rolls her eyes and corrects herself. She tells him that they actually have no idea where Jorah is — but he is probably with the Khal. Who was also found guilty of crimes against humanity. He was tried in absentia. His wealth has already been dispersed.

Grey tells them that he understands why they are here — he truly does. He had family once. He supposes that if it were his mother — if his mother was still alive — he’d be doing everything he could to get back to her, too. So he understands this. But as it currently stands, he has no ties to this world. Nothing really incentivizes him to die violently and painfully — not when he can die slowly, of boredom or of maybe some infection, of natural causes.

He asks Brienne what’s in this for her? The Starks aren’t her family.

“My father is dead, too,” she tells him stiffly. “He died in the last year — alone. You know how hard travel is now — I couldn’t make it to see him in time. I didn’t even attempt to. But we talked over the phone a lot. He told me he understood. He told me to continue to do what I think is the right thing.”

“I’m not like you,” Grey says. “I’m self-interested.”

“Now, we all know that’s a lie you like to sell to yourself,” Brienne says, knowingly. “You’re idealistic. Just like me. That’s why it was so easy for her to break your heart.”

His actual heart seizes in his chest. Because for a moment, he doesn’t understand who Brienne is referring to. 

 

 

She’s a woman, so they unchain her and dress her in feminine robes before two of them take her to her new master, her arms tightly being squeezed between two large fists.

They shove her into the room and slam the door shut behind her. She hears the thump of their backs against the door, as they stand guard. And eerily — she’s very familiar with that sound. She used to hear that sound almost every day of her old life. Coming from him — it represented safety and security to her. Here — this is a bastardization of that memory. Here — she starts to cry even though she hates it when she cries in front of other people in this way. She doesn’t want to give them the satisfaction of seeing her break.

He was just eating his dinner. There’s a plate of meat bones and a glass of wine with a dried smear of red on the table next to her. There are no knives — a fact that shows that they had some sort of forethought.

In Low Valyrian, he tells her that he will fuck her ass until she bleeds and there is nothing left of her but a shell. And then he will do it — again and again — until she learns to like it.

Missandei suddenly reaches out and snatches up the wine glass. He’s stunned as he watches her smash it on the table’s edge, breaking it into shards — the broken glass biting back into her hand wound. Her blood is free-flowing down her arm in rivulets as he loudly shouts for his guards to come into the room. But he’s fucking stupid. She’s not trying to kill this fucking coward.

She shakily uses her weakened strength, to drag the broken edge of the glass into the fleshy crook of the inside of her left elbow. She barely distinguishes the new pain from the old pain. Her left arm is matching her right. The glass shard is hard to hold onto now — slippery. She drops it and holds her wound open with her blood-covered fingers, dripping onto the floor, showing it to him. She easily mimics his shitty accent, with its shitty Ghiscari loan words. The room is starting to spin and she tells him that he can fuck her bleeding, dying corpse however he fucking wants, if it means so much to him. But she will not be a participant in it. She tells him that _this_ is how disgusted she is by him. She hates him enough to kill herself to spite him. 

 

 

 


	5. five

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There was a throwaway line in a GoT ep this season, in which Missandei tells Tyrion that her former master Kraznys used to make them play games with him, just the girls. There was also a line to Tyrion that Grey Worm says, about how people look at him and see a weapon, and how people look at Missandei and see a whore. Those two things inform this chapter. So, consider this a trigger warning of sorts.

 

 

 

She remembers waking up intermittently — yellow slices of light burning her eyes and giving her a headache before she closes her lids and succumbs back into oblivion — uncaring of what any of it means.

It’s really her first moment of lucidity, that brings about blistering pain. She wakes up screaming and crying — and she feels hands firmly holding her down, voices in Low Valyrian telling her to relax or else she’s going to rip her stitches. She can’t stop — won’t stop — she just screams savagely until her her lungs threaten to burst — until a pinprick touches her shoulder and then the room clouds over, wavering in its realism. She feels drugged — she’s been drugged — and she falls back to sleep.

 

 

  
When she awakens again, she hears a chair scrape against the floor before she can make out Jaime’s blurry face, as he looms over her. “Hello?” he says. “Hello? Can you understand me? It’s Jaime.”

The room is throbbing and pulsating. Her eyes tear up right away in self-defense, before scanning his bearded face — haggard and much older than she remembers — hollowed.

“You’re really drugged up,” he says. “Painkillers. You’ve been in and out for days.”

He immediately moves to help her, as she gingerly tries to roll over to sit up. She cries out when she puts weight on her arm, and then cries out again when she puts weight on her other hand. She collapses back onto the bed, sweating and shivering.

“You’re lucky,” Jaime says, his tone lifting in some humor. “You got to keep your arm, despite your best efforts to the contrary.” He shuffles some of the sheets around with his good hand, unwrapping some of it from her sweaty body. Then, he slowly pulls her into an uncomfortable lounging-lying-sitting position with his arms tightly wound around her shoulders. He uses his stump to steady the cup, to keep the water from sloshing over the edge, as he leans forward to bring it to her cracked lips and dry throat.

The water tastes amazing. It feels fucking amazing. She immediately feels more alive after gulping down some mouthfuls of the stuff. And then she says, “I’m . . . wearing a diaper?”

“Welcome to the life of being an invalid,” Jaime says, grinning. And then more seriously, he says, “They had me wait for you to wake up so that you wouldn’t freak out on them again — I told them I was familiar to you. They’re gonna figure out you’re awake soon and will come in to take you to him again. He wants to talk to you.”

“What does he want from me?” she says, voice croaking. Why did they work so hard to stop her from dying? Did he really go through those lengths only to kill her when she wakes up?

“I don’t know what he wants from you.”

 

 

  
Brienne watches as he tidies up his things — the things that he will leave behind in his house — just not comprehending why it’s even important to clean up before leaving. She’s being impatient, and he tells her that he’s not really signing up for miles and miles of her bossing him around, as he deliberately slows down his pace even more, pulling his blankets over his bed after fluffing up his pillow.

This is just one of his habits. He led a very nomadic life when he was a kid — with his mom. They were always in and out of places, absconding in the middle of the night sometimes. She taught him to always make his bed and clean up after himself — it’s not only the polite thing to do, but it less alarming when people invariably stumble on the space later. It won’t read as something worth being concerned over. And _that_  is the gift of time that he will give himself, over and over again.

Yara tells them that Astapor is maybe forty-eight hours of straight driving away — they can probably get there in three days if they take shifts. Astapor is the nearest port city. And he asks Brienne and Yara if either of them speak Low Valyrian — knowing full well that they don’t. He asks them if either of them have ever even been to Astapor.

“Okay, what’s your point?” Yara says, crossing her arms over her chest.

“You’re women,” he says. “And you’re foreigners.”

Yara rolls her eyes. “Why do you think we stopped over to come get you, princess? Obviously it’s not for your sparkling wit and storytelling ability.”

He crosses his arms and stares back at her.

 

 

  
They actually ask her how she wants to present herself to the Master. It’s a very bizarre question that she cannot even begin to process through — especially not when she’s still fucking high as fuck. The women clarify and delicately ask her if she’d like to put on her underclothes. It takes her a beat — her eyes flash to Jaime’s — to realize they are referring to her diaper — the Depends. Her body can feel that she’s been been bed-bound. Her joints are sore and aching, her muscles are weak from disuse. Her body is covered in pain — in cuts and also in wet rashes. There’s a sharp tug that zips through her whenever she twists around in her seat. She absently wonders — more in a routine way than a concerned way — about all the infections she has been exposed to, sitting in her own waste.

She tells the women that she will keep her diaper — vaguely leading them to think that she can’t hold her shit and pee in yet. It could very well be true. But honestly — she just bitterly wants to be in her most disgusting state, if she has to see this piece of shit again — if she has to look upon his piece of shit face again.

She’s become attached to Jaime — because he’s the only thing left that reminds her of who she used to be — the only thing that reminds her she’s still human — in the short time they’ve spent in each other’s company. She feels panicked — when she realizes that he’s not meant to come with her. He looks grief-stricken himself, lifting up his right arm before he realizes what he’s doing — before a flash of anger slips off his face — before he drops the arm and resolutely nods at her. It’s ambiguous, but she thinks he’s telling her to give ’em hell. And she finds herself tearing up again — this time because of emotion — crying over it because she’s so ill-equipped for this shit.

She can’t even walk. Her legs are wobbly, and the room intensely spins in a swirl of light and heat when she tries to stand. The voices sound far away when they tell her it’s temporary — perhaps a side effects of the cocktail of drugs she’s been giving. Perhaps a side effect from a week of atrophy.

 

 

  
After they wheel her in on a wheelchair — after the door is left wide open — after a bunch of witnesses sit up straight in attention, like this is some genteel farce — after a disorienting and congenial greeting — one in which he keeps his distance from her — he tells her his name is Kraznys mo Nakloz, searching her face for any recognition. He has to be a Walker.

And she don’t give a fuck what his name is.

He asks her what her name is. She hates him so much that all she can do is stare straight ahead at nothing. She’s afraid and she’s sure and she’s buzzing over the fact that if she looks at him again, she will spontaneously combust and destroy them all — or she will break down into sobs like some weak woman and beg for him not to bother her anymore, not to try to touch her anymore. It’s this horrible thing — that she can no longer even be confident in who she is and what she will do, that she can no longer even predict her own actions and feelings and thoughts. She distrusts even herself.

Kraznys says to her that he’s almost never, ever hears his dialect — his accent — vestiges of the Ghiscari language, one that has been annihilated by outsiders. But she speaks it. Perfectly. Her voice reminds him of his — he falters — of the voices of his family members, long dead now. He curiously asks her who she is and where she came from.

She understands now. He’s affording her a certain amount of reverence because he has assumed that she could be his kin.

It’s a fucking cosmic joke. And she just wants to bitterly laugh over it.

 

 

  
He intends to leave his firearms behind — but Brienne balks over it. He tells her that they will get stolen and possibly incite violence, long before they even get to Astapor. She snipes at him and tells him he’s been too-long removed from society — they now live and die by guns. She lifts up a flap in the trunk, tucking his rifle, bullets, his handguns in between the modest inventory that they already have.

Brienne replaces the flap, shifts a tarp and some rope around, before she loads up the back with fresh water in old plastic milk jugs. They used to all be so concerned about BPA. He remembers how Missandei used to freak out on him, whenever she caught him heating up lunch in plastic containers, in the microwave. He remembers how she showed up to work one day with a set of tempered glassware for him — really awkward about the gift because they weren’t in the mode of buying each other things — shoving it all at him when he didn’t respond right away, telling him to stop making it weird — she just didn’t want him to die from plastic poisoning. He thought it was so nice and so kind and so adorable — that he refrained from telling her that the research is fairly inconclusive, that BPA actually poses significant health risks to humans.

Now, it all seems so faraway.

Brienne snaps the trunk shut, shooting a cloud of dust into her face. She swats it away. Her face is sunburned pink — painfully so. “Ready?” she asks him. She started giving him details — lots and lots of details about everything, about Sansa and Ramsay and Dany and the rest of them — but he honestly just doesn’t care about the details. That’s never been who he was. He just . . . does. He just acts. He just commits. He told Brienne to save her breath. She didn’t need to sell him on this by painting it as some noble endeavor. That doesn’t inspire him. But he’s in anyway.

A lot of it in based on intuition and his gut feeling. He doesn’t believe in ideals. He believes in people with ideals. He trusts her. He remembers this about her — her trustworthiness.

He shrugs. “Yeah.”

 

 

  
Missandei feels like she’s signing her own death warrant, when she reverts to her baseline Low Valyrian accent — from where she’s from, from Naath — and she tells Kraznys that she’s not of the same blood that he is. Part this truthfulness comes from her utter disgust of him and not wanting to even be associated with him. The other part of it is that her will to live is at an utter low. She doesn’t particularly have a reason to work hard at self-preservation.

He almost doesn’t believe her. He asks her how she was able to speak his language so perfectly.

Unconsciously, she slightly points to her ear with her right hand, and she tells him that she is good with languages. It’s just . . . something about her. Before —

She flinches with that word. She was about to say before the Walkers.

She clamps her mouth shut again.

A light comes over his eyes — she’s not expecting it. She expected him to just shoot her in the head once he learned that she is not cut from the same cloth that he is, that she’s still some mongrel animal that he bought in some bogus buy-one-get-one-human internet sales blitz.

She feels cold. She looks around the room — at all of the silent people. She’s looking for another wine glass, another sharp object — but then, people tend to learn from their mistakes. There is utterly nothing she has left, to protect herself with.

Kraznys tells her he has a use for a person like her.

 

 

  
After the first shift of driving — eight hours — they have Brienne transfer to the back of the sedan, her long body awkward and uncomfortably squished against both ends. Her legs are bent at the knees, swaying and hitting the back of his seat with every bump and swerve. She’s lying down, face up, sleeping away her exhaustion, arms crossed protectively over her chest, even as she sleeps.

Yara had him drive because it was most comfortable for her. She has told him that she doesn’t know him, she doesn’t know who he is, doesn’t know his deal, his loyalties, or even his fucking sanity. She has told him that Brienne is the one who is vouching _really hard_ for him. Yara doesn’t know him from Dick or Harry. She said it warningly — like she dared him to prove Brienne wrong about him. She told him that a person changes in six years — especially in the past six years that they have all lived through. It must have been convenient to have checked out — to have just run away and shove his head in the sand — instead of staying and fighting.

Isn’t it?

He has responded to none of her condemnations.

“Brienne’s not gay, you know?” Yara says, conversationally. It’s the first thing either of them have said in the last hour. “People have made assumptions, because she and I have been traveling together. I wonder what they will think now, with you in the mix.”

He doesn’t know what she’s getting at. So he just continues the silence.

 

 

  
She’s found this strength that she didn’t know she still had inside of her, as she’s screaming at Kraznys to stop. He angrily asks her if she thinks she has an ally, if she thinks she has a friend, if she thinks that he will allow another to fuck her, if she actually thinks that she is under anyone’s protection. She gulping in hot dust clouds, as she fights to see him through her crying. Her voice is hoarse, and she feels defeated. She feels sunken as she urgently negotiates with him — as she tells him she was wrong and insolent and just really, really stupid. And that she does care whether she lives or dies — she _does_ care. She wants to live. She wants to help him. She wants to be of value to him. She wants to live to serve him.

A choked scream sneaks out of her throat when the sound of the switch hitting Jaime’s bare back cracks loudly. Jaime only grunts. And he stays upright, on his knees.

And she’s so fucking _sorry._

She starts to say something to him — just pour out her regrets and her fallacy to him — but Kraznys tells her to shut her mouth. He tells her that her actions affect other people — and she has to stop being so selfish.

 

 

  
Jaime is there, when she is wheeled from Kraznys’ chambers and is returned to the communal house, later that night.

They find that they have nothing left to say to each other.

But he still manages. “I’m so sorry,” he says.

She swallows the bile in the throat. She condenses her sore and beaten body carefully. And she wants to ask him what he’s sorry for — she doesn’t need his apologies because he has done nothing to her. And she wants to tell him that female virtue and honor are these archaic and obsolete concepts. She wants to tell him that this isn’t who she is — that what has happened to her doesn’t wholly define who she is.

He feels horrible because he thinks it’s all his fault.

But sex is sometimes just sex. She’s had sex before, devoid of love. This is not unique — to her or to any other person.

And it’s all too much to say. And she’s not going to cry over it. She still doesn’t actually know Jaime that well. He has his own shit that he’s dealing with. What she does tell him, calmly, is, “I’m going to kill that motherfucker. One day. Tomorrow maybe. He doesn’t deserve to live.”

“I will help you,” Jaime rasps.

 

 

  
Sanitation and biological issues are shitty for women — he has known, and he is relearning. Brienne has insisted that he doesn’t watch her pee — he has said someone needs to watch her back as she cops a squat next to a tree — and she has said that that person really doesn’t need to be him. In fact, she really doesn’t want it to be him. He thinks she’s being ridiculously female about this — he doesn’t even give a fuck. He just doesn’t want her to die in some horrible event because she doesn’t have someone watching her back at all times. And for what? For some pointless sense of modesty? He _doesn’t_ care.

But he doesn’t think there’s even a way for him to properly convey this to her.

He has wondered if it’s also something else. Maybe she doesn’t want to appear naked in front of him — for other reasons. And that’s something he generally tries not to think very much about. There’s nothing he can say there, either — to allay any fears.

Yara doesn’t give many shits — which is convenient for him. She cops her squat wherever, whenever.

And she ends up watching over Brienne, when Brienne needs to go. He’s left alone with the car at a rest stop, pacing back and forth, impatient for them to get back from the restrooms. There’s no one else around.

 

 

  
She can guess how Jaime lost his hand, as she watches him enter the small field — a grassless area in the center of a natural amphitheatre — a small lake that had dried out at one point. He’s naked — they both are — and there’s a rigid resignation and a kind of experience that is built into the way his body moves. She wonders how he has even arrived at this point in life — what the fuck happened to him to have made him stuck here with her, right here?

The crowd erupts in screams and applause. On her right, Kraznys tells her that he got Jaime at a bargain price — except he doesn’t call Jaime by name. He doesn’t even call Jaime Kingslayer. He calls Jaime a word that basically translates to the white evil. Kraznys tells her that Jaime’s maiming was very unfortunate and it devalued him immensely, but — he was getting too old anyway. There’s a lifespan of usefulness, when it comes to these things.

In several languages, to the players — the high-rollers — Kraznys has her translate the terms and the conditions. Then he has her translate the odds. When she hesitates, or even when she takes some time to think, he has her slapped. There is a designated old woman whose sole purpose is to slap her — maybe a Walker, she isn’t sure — as Missandei sits there in her wheelchair, with her bandaged hands chained together, with her feet chained together, with it all braced at her neck, running down the back of her body like a second, debilitating spine.

This is a fucking joke to all of them. This is a fucking piece of entertainment. They are laughing because Jaime has one hand and his opponent has one foot. This is a fucking sideshow.

She knows that Jaime knows this, too. He must not be thinking of this right now though — as he bleeds onto the ground from knife cuts. He must just be thinking of surviving.

Kraznys has figured out what motivates her, what compels her to do her job during the day and go to his chambers at night — he has figured out she’s emotionally invested in Jaime. Kraznys has angrily told her that she belongs to him, not to Jaime. And it’s utterly pointless to correct him — to say that Old World stupid shit about how she gets to pick, and she should have a choice. Because — the entire framework is wrong. The entire guise of it all is wrong.

She used to listen as the former families used to rationalize away what they were doing — re-implementing a form of slavery for a greater good — by stating that the Walkers weren’t people like the rest of them were people.

Missandei is numb inside — and she simultaneously has to avert her eyes — when Jaime drags his knife across the other man’s throat.

 

 

  
He’s sprinting. He probably shouldn’t get too fucking far from the car, so he has to be really fast. His feet dig into the hard, sandy ground, and he propels his body forward with this heat and this fire — so he can get close enough to tackle this fucking kid. It’s just a fucking idiot kid, so Grey doesn’t want to hurt the thing, but he is so fucking irritated with this shit.

They hit the ground, the kid underneath him. He feels the air whoosh out of lungs — the kid’s chest will be spazzing out, fighting to breathe. He knows this, so he rolls over and gets back up to his feet, in a squat close to the ground.

And then he clicks metal and digs his knee into the kid’s spine. And he presses the barrel of his gun into the back of the kid’s head. The kid knows what’s up — because he immediately stills and goes rigid. His terrified body bounces from holding in a cough. “Relax,” he says. “No fast movements.”

“I’m sorry!” the kid pushes out, sobbing — voice lower than Grey expected. “I’m so sorry, mister. I didn’t think you’d noticed! I just — I just —”

“Where were you hiding!” Grey says savagely. “How come I didn’t see you! Are you a walker!”

“No! I was in the woods! I wait for cars. I’m sorry! I will give it back! I’ll give it all back! P-please. _Please.”_

Grey presses more of his weight into the kid’s spine, presses the gun harder into the back of his skull — ignoring all of the crying and the fear and the rambling — looking down at the kid’s hand, which has loosened. Grey’s more ticked at himself for letting this happen — what the fuck was he _even doing?_

A partial pack of gum falls out of the kid’s hand.

 

 

 

 


	6. six

 

 

  
Brienne’s eyes just about bug out of her head, when she sees him standing around with his hand on the kid’s shoulder. She can’t yet see the gun pressed to the kid’s spine. They are rigid with anxiety, but they purposely keep their pace unhurried — he sees Brienne and Yara’s gazes travel around the area — relatively open except for the greenbelt — a small forested area the kid was hiding in.

When they’re within earshot, Yara says, “Wow. You got us a present. But you shouldn’t have. You really shouldn’t have.”

“What happened?” Brienne says.

“Um.” He clears his throat. “He tried to steal gum.” He winces at how it sounds. It sounds like Yara is right, and he has lost his fucking marbles. He’s out of practice. He’s too paranoid now. His judgement is shot. He’s been too long removed from the world of people. He’s going to get them killed.

Brienne tensely stiffens. And then to the kid’s tear-streaked face, she says, “What’s your name?”

“I’m so sorry!” the kid cries out. “I didn’t mean it!”

“What’s your name?” Brienne repeats.

“P-Podrick, sir.”

Grey digs the barrel of his gun further into Podrick’s back.

“Ma’am! I meant ma’am!”

 

 

  
Once she has a mission — albeit one without any planning behind it — her life is filled with purpose yet again. This time, she’s not a dewy-eyed over-achieving college grad with something to prove — by trying to change the world. This time — she’s wizened, older, and has no fucks left to give.

She swats the hands away when they try to help lift her into the examination chair. She snaps at them and tells them that she will not regain use of her muscles if they don’t let her try.

She inwardly winces — but doesn’t let it show on the outside — because she’s dry; these asshole Walkers or humans don’t have lube — and the speculum pinches. She’s harshly told to relax, which only makes her more ticked off and tense. She’s still raw from her self-inflicted injuries — her body still shakes from pain — and that is involuntary. Her skin crawls as they scrape off a sample.

It’s this badly kept secret — the rumors floating around the air in dark whispers. There are rumors that Kraznys is sterile — and also obsessed with proving the very opposite to be true. He supposedly has two young girls — who don’t bear a strong resemblance to him because are pretty girls and not ugly like he is — but he has claimed them as his own daughters, perhaps in a show of power, perhaps because he’s an idiot. Five of his wives have already been executed for their useless bodies. Women who have been caught lying to him about their pregnancy and about paternity have been put to death. He is a pathetic sack of shit.

Missandei is told that she looks very healthy — very pink and healthy.

 

 

  
He asks Brienne if she wants him to kill Pod — causing her bright eyes to flash at him in distaste. She hisses that Pod is a child. And he almost tells her that he was joking. Kind of.

He stands a ways off, next to the car as Brienne stoops down low to the ground, talking to Pod gravely. He can’t hear what they are saying.

“So far — it’s been a _great_ idea, having you come along,” Yara says sarcastically, crossing her arms as she leans against the trunk. “It’s been really convenient and not at all troublesome.”

“You sure came a long way for a busted soldier,” he says.

She smiles — the humor not even getting near her eyes. “Don’t flatter yourself. We didn’t come all the way over here for you. We just happened to be in your ’hood.” Yara clears her throat, and then juts out her chin at Pod. “He a Walker?”

“Fuck if I know,” Grey says.

“You’re the fucking Walker whisperer — you tell me.”

“I can’t tell. He look likes a kid to me.”

Brienne walks over to them with Pod trailing ahead of her, under her watchful eye. She tells them that they’re going to take Pod to the city — part ways with him there. He can find work and eke out a living, better than a small town in the middle of nowhere. Brienne tells them that Pod has no one — no family. His parents were missionaries who suffered a tragic automobile accident during the chaos of the Walker takeover. The people who fostered him for the past six years cannot afford to feed him anymore. He has nobody left.

Pod avoids eye contact with Grey as he walks past, head held down low. Next to him, Yara is griping about this — asking Brienne if she’s really serious. They are not a fucking charity.

“We’re going to Astapor _anyway,”_ Brienne snaps. “What’s one more person filling up a seat? You want to leave him to starve and die out here? He’s fourteen years old.”

 

 

  
She has started sneaking out of her cot, out of the house the women are sequestered in — in the middle of the night to meet him. In a vague way, it sort of reminds her of her teenage years, when she’d jump off the first story roof to run off and meet a boy. Her parents called it disrespect and they called it acting out.

Jaime’s eyes kind of glow in the dark — maybe because light reflects his skin easily — even moonlight. He has started saving his food rations for her — so that she can eat and regain her strength back quickly. She has started pushing herself too hard. At the beginning of this, she lamely told him she took a few kickboxing classes — she used to do yoga and pilates. She used to be a swimmer of sorts. All of it — meager offerings. But she has promised that what she lacks in experience, she will make up in enthusiasm.

He swings at her in the dark, at her face. She ducks and blocks it. She’s asked him how he became such a great fighter. He corrected her on two counts. He told her that he isn’t even a decent fighter anymore — not without his hand. And he told her that he’s always been a fighter — in the sense that he always fought. He told her his dad used to beat the shit out of him and his siblings, so that’s how the seed was planted. That’s why he took an interest in defending himself at a young age. He told her that his skill has become a fucking burden and a fucking blessing. It has kept him alive so far. And he has killed more people than he has ever expected to, in a lifetime.

He’s still good enough — even handicapped — which worries the both of them because it speaks to her general lack of finesse and strength. He elbows her in the stomach, knocking the wind out of her. She gasps for air as his left hand comes around her neck, clamping down on her throat and vocal cords. He pulls her into a chokehold as she claws ineffectively at his arm.

They slowly sink the ground. Her face is a sweaty mess of skin, of heated blood vessels. She muffles her cough in the fabric of her dress, as his touch becomes gentle, as he quietly pats her on the back.

“You can’t expect to be good at this right away,” he says. “It’s actually hard to have the fortitude to choke the life out of someone.”

 

 

  
Grey shoves his back against the car door, and he presses the bottom of his shoes against Pod’s thigh, wedging him far against his side of the backseat. Grey’s gun is trained on the kid — who looks distressed and nervous. They’ve been playing a game of twenty questions in the last hour, with Grey spitting out questions fast — in succession, repeating certain ones, asking follow-ups on certain ones, to try and pick out any inconsistencies in Pod’s answers.

They are not abnormally inconsistent. And he can see the terror in Pod’s eyes whenever the kid accidentally answers something wrong or imprecisely. Grey has learned that Pod was born in King’s Landing. He was educated there his first two years of primary school. His parents were devout and they wanted to do their work before he was too old, so they pulled him out of school for a year and moved to a farm in a small town outside of Astapor.

 

 

  
She volunteers to go to the day market with the elders to buy food for the day. They laughed at her, turning over her hands, remarking that they are soft and delicate, devoid of calluses. They tell her she cannot even walk — how does she expect to be useful?

Missandei points out that she can barter — in many different languages. That’s probably useful.

Everyone bumps into her wheelchair roughly, uncaring. Her chair is doubling as a shopping cart, as loads of herbs, vegetables, and grains are loaded onto her lap.

As she waits for one of the sisters to come back from buying seeds, Missandei dumps her hand into a fish tank — stuff to the walls with the day’s catch — ugly flat bottom feeders — and she grips onto a thrashing fish. Her arm is soaked and the sharp fins cut into her hand wound as the fish violently fights to live, the motion of it sickening and just breaking her heart.

Someone behind her snaps at her, asking her what she’s doing. It jars her out of her resolve. And Missandei drops the poor fish back into the tank.

 

 

  
Jaime tells her to wait until she is stronger — at the very least, wait until she can properly walk — run actually. So she can run out of there. They will plan an escape route. He will wait for her and will help her stay safe. He can find someone to trust — that will grant them passage on a ship. Everything can be bought — for a price — whether it be in gold or in something else. He’s confident in this. He just needs more time.

She tells him she cannot wait. She feels disgust every time she has to lie down with Kraznys and have him rut at her. She tells Jaime that she’s planning on dying anyway. She’s just taking that motherfucker down with her. The sooner, the better.

She asks Jaime why he even fights so hard to live. She asks him what is even _this life?_ This miserable existence for him?

He tells her he’s doing it for love. There’s something he has to get back to. There’s somebody he is living for.

It sounds so sappy and so unrealistic to her. But she doesn’t comment much on it. She generally stays noncommittal. And Jaime looks at her with such concern in his eyes. He repeats to her that she has to wait.

 

 

  
The squawking of birds is deafening in Astapor’s harbor. Brienne is immediately spat on — when she exits out of the car and tries to talk to a man who is standing like a statue, with a fishing rod screwed and tied to the ground. He sees Brienne’s face turn red — but she holds back her anger, swallows her pride. And she turns and walks back to them.

They immediately stick out as foreigners — and he does, too, by association. The irony is that he has lived here. In a certain way, he was made here. He shouldn’t be so foreign — but he is. He quietly tells Brienne and Yara that he’s going to take a walk by himself — he needs to distance himself from them for a bit. He tells them that he doesn’t expect they’ll be able to book a ticket for today — it’s too late in the day anyway. He tells Brienne and Yara to go find them a place to stay for the night instead.

Brown and Purple Walkers litter Astapor. It’s easy to spot them because they are decayed corpses, in suspended re-animation. They are devoid of language, devoid of emotion and thought. They are used for simple labors — and they are inexpensive slaves — inexpensive to keep. They don’t need to eat, they don’t need to defecate, they don’t need to fuck.

But — he has learned — the art of subjugation isn’t purely propped up by economics. For some, there is a thrill in and a prestige in owning people who don’t want to be owned. That fighting spirit is something that is apparently hard to replicate.

In Low Valyrian, as Grey asks the ticket man how much to Tolos — a movement catches the corner of his eye. Light skin and light hair is rare in this area of the world — and with a start, Grey realizes that he knows this person — from a while ago — even through the beard, the weight loss, and the sunburnt skin. Grey leaves the ticket counter without a word and starts trailing Jaime Lannister.

 

 

  
One of his sickening fetishes is that he likes to watch her eat — and he likes to feed her — and he will hit her across the face if she dares to gag, which has happened once, before she learned. Missandei is still chair-bound, but she can shuffle some steps, using the wall for balance. It’s why Jaime wants her to wait, but he is not in _here,_ having to bide time doing _this._

And she doesn’t intend to stay living anyway.

The meat has been pre-cut. He picks up a piece between his forefinger and his thumb and holds it out to her. Her stomach lurches as she obediently leans forward, to take the meat with her teeth. He won’t let her anywhere near his penis with her teeth. But he likes it when her lips accidentally touch his fingers. It makes her skin crawl because he’s so disgusting.

After the incident with the wine glass, not even a blunt butter knife is allowed in his chambers, not even a fork. He has told her that she’s wild — that she’s his most spirited girl. It has hung over her head — that once she fully heals from her wounds, her feet will also probably have to be chained up before being sent into his chambers.

He tells her that she looks beautiful today. She looks down into her lap, at the stained blue dress they put on her — some other woman’s dress — and she tells him she doesn’t particularly feel beautiful. Kraznys misinterprets her response — assumes it’s some coy solicitation for reassurance because she is vain, like all women. He runs his hands down her body and cups her breast through the dress. He tells her she’s always very beautiful.

 

 

  
Lannister can sense he’s being followed. Grey should have met back up with Yara and Brienne by now, but there’s no way for him to convey to them what’s going on. He will lose Jaime in this mess if he doesn’t push forward. Jaime’s pace is quickening — he’s avoiding his actual destination, which makes Grey surmise that his actual destination is the city center.

When Jaime breaks into a run, clumsily, due to his chains — Grey’s not surprised at all. He’s ready for it. He’s sprinting, pushing through a dumb crowd of Brown and Purple Walkers, shoving them out of the way as he catches a glimpse of Jaime disappearing through a dark doorway.

As he follows through, he doesn’t expect to get slammed into the ground — by a bitch punch — not until it’s too late. He’s bleeding out of his nose and he gasps and blinks against the sun, as he shoots his hand out and catches Jaime’s ankle.

Jaime hits the ground with a thump, and Grey can taste salt and metal on his lips as he crawls his way up Jaime’s body, grabbing fabric roughly in his fist, as Jaime thrashes and kicks at him.

He’s stunned to see that Jaime is missing a hand — it just about makes him dumb enough to leave Jaime an opening, for another low blow — but Jaime is comparatively weak and . . . really, really injured. Grey’s holding Jaime down with his body weight, and bleeding into the middle of his back, in between his shoulder blades.

“You want money?” Jaime grits out, voice crackly and raw. “I have no money. You’re just torturing a helpless man now.”

“You’re Jaime Lannister.”

Jaime goes rigid underneath him.

 

 

  
He has to pick her up to put her on the bed. She’s lying on the chain binding her hands together. He smells like body odor and lamb as he presses his mouth to her skin. He doesn’t care for kissing. He just likes to get close enough to smell her body. He always has her freshly bathed before she’s sent to him. Her dress is held together by weak pins — to make it easier to take off without unlocking her limbs.

It’s uncomfortable and physically painful, when he pushes into her. It hurts because she’s not ready and he has to force it. A part of her wonders if he just thinks this sort of effort is just a part of sex — because it’s all he’s ever known because he is despicable. She clutches onto blankets and pillows with her hands, as he pulls out and shoves himself back inside of her. She sees him wince — just a flicker in his eyes.

In Low Valyrian, she asks him if he’s okay.

He tells her that his back has been giving him trouble. It’s been spasming.

She kind of frowns sympathetically. She asks him if he wants to lie down. She can be on top.

 

 

  
There’s too much going on — too much noise and people and bodies — that he’s able to furtively sneak Jaime into the motel, his hand over the bloody spot that he had created on Jaime’s shirt. The guy at the front desk had told them third floor. There are only narrow stairs.

When he opens the door to the room, Yara immediately says, “What the _fuck?”_ She doesn’t recognize Jaime. To Grey, she says, “I am really fucking regretting letting you come on this trip. You fucking picked up some hobo on the street for us to take care of now?”

Pod stiffens.

“Hey, beautiful,” Jaime says softly, orienting his gaze to the corner of the room where Brienne is standing. “Long time no see.”

When she registers who it is — when she sees past the beard and the grime — she points her face to the ceiling and she says, “Oh shit.”

“Oh, great. You remember me.”

 

 

  
He’s mewling softly, as she steadily raises herself up and down — resentfully fucking him — with her hands braced against his chest, with her chain cradling her butt. It’s when his eyes roll back in his head — in pleasure — that she roughly flips the chain over her head — it’s tight and it’s taut because the point is to restrict movement. She’s practiced this with Jaime. She’ll fucking dislocate her fucking shoulder to do this if she has to. She’ll break her fucking arms off.

She barely registers the pain or the sound of popping — the stress of her joints. His look of shock and disbelief as she winds the metal links around his neck, as her hands start shaking as she pulls tight, as he starts silently choking, as his hands come up, first to the chain at his neck, and then violently at her body and her face, scratching her with his nails — she feels such satisfaction when she feels him softening inside of her. She viciously tells herself that _this_ is the way to _die._

He fights for long minutes. Her arms are shaking and trembling — and she is happy to find that she does not even question for one moment — her resolve is strong. And a fucking fish has more of her care of her respect than he does. His hand is blindly smacking her face — and she’s bleeding — out of her mouth, her nose, cuts — dripping onto his face as it turns purple — as tears squeeze out of his eyes — as she slowly, but surely, extinguishes the life from him.

 

 

  
Jaime sees them as a cash cow — as a golden goose. That much is clear. He has painted this long-winded story about how he has been sold — repeatedly — how he was maimed because he pissed someone off while drunk — the punishment did not match the crime at all — how he is continually forced to fight for his life — all for some petty entertainment. He tells them that they have to let him come with them — they can’t leave him in this fucking hellhole. Brienne, for the most part, is untouched. She tells Jaime that they’re not taking a summer vacation in the middle of fucking Slaver’s Bay. They have their own agenda.

“Take me with you. I can help.”

“Oh, right, because a crippled hobo is useful to us,” Yara nastily says. It’s clear where she stands on this.

 

 

  
She rolls off of him — it took her long minutes to truly be confident that he’s dead — that he’s not just unconscious — that the purple bruising on his neck is real. She probably choked him — after he was stock still and dead — for an additional ten minutes, just silently sobbing out her disbelief — her disbelief that this is _her life._ She’s a bloody mess. The sheets are a bloody mess. He is fucking dead. She will be in so much trouble when they find her.

She whimpers as she grabs onto a bedpost, using it to get back to her feet, to get back to her wheelchair, her chain links rustling against one another. Her feet shake underneath her — this is really the fucking pits. In a way, Jaime was right. But she’s really glad she didn’t listen to him anyway.

She collapses on the ground. Her hands are in great pain. Her legs still refuse to work — she might be a fucking invalid forever. She was fucking short-sighted. She’s a fucking lame duck. She suddenly finds that for all of her arrogant bluster about how she’s down to die — she is really, really fucking upset that she is going to die now.

 

 

  
It’s when Jaime says her name, saying that they have to get her, too, that they are a package deal that none of them really want at all — that’s when Grey stalks up to Jaime and grabs a fistful of Jaime’s shirt and harshly bounces Jaime against the nearest wall. He tells Jaime that it’s fucking low — it’s fucking low and pathetic to lie and to say her name, to Grey's fucking face — and for what? So Jaime can fucking save his own ass?

“You have no honor,” Grey spits.

Jaime’s eyes are wide with surprise — and then calculating. He quietly says, “I’m not lying.”

“She’s _dead.”_ He inwardly flinches — because he has never even voiced this irrational belief before — not even to himself.  When he thinks of her, he only mines the past.  He never thinks about what she must be doing at any particular moment. He thinks that she must be dead — because he was a coward and he left and he abandoned her. That’s what happened. That’s what he did. Grey shakes his head. “Or she’s not here,” he says, correcting himself. “Why would she be here in Astapor?”

“She’s _not_ dead. But she has a death wish. But she’s alive, you _idiot._ For _now.”_

 

 

 


	7. seven

 

 

 

She remembers that one scene in Kill Bill where Uma Thurman pulls herself and her jacked legs into the Pussy Wagon and wills her toe to fucking move, which it does, setting into motion a suite of some real badass shit.

Missandei suspects that the next few minutes of her life will not play out like that at all. She was never combat-trained. She has had basic self-defense classes, and like she told Jaime — she took a handful of kickboxing classes once upon a time. That is it. And she’s breaking open the cuts on her hand and arm again, as she drags herself and her _fucking chains_ across the thick carpet on the floor. Her upper body is weak already — and the added weight of iron is just about this insurmountable thing. She’s exhausted after a meager feet — collapsing and sinking her sweaty face into the musty ground.

Maybe she should just die.

She supposes this was the very thing her father was afraid of — when he put metal bars on her windows. He was a man who was constantly vigilant and constantly paranoid. He watched too much TV news and every whiff he ever got of pedophiles and rapists just set him on edge, pushing him deeper and deeper into irrationality. The cosmic joke might be that his paranoia might have been premonition.

And no. She will not die just yet.

Missandei takes a fortifying breath — her face bleeds even hotter — tears are breaking through with the effort — as her entire body shakes — as she continues to slowly claw her way back to her wheelchair.

 

 

  
Jaime tells them they are wasting time talking about this. His chains scrape against the ground in his agitation. They need to go retrieve Missandei. Brienne insists that they don’t have the room for two extra people — they booked passage for just three of them. And five people in their car is already a tight squeeze. At that, Pod quietly speaks up — he says he doesn’t want to be left behind in Astapor. He says he wants to go with them.

Brienne frowns. She tells Pod that they agreed — they were meant to take him to Astapor — and then they are meant to part. Pod tells her he has nothing left. He wants to go with them — and that he can be useful. He pleads with her. He says he won’t eat very much, won’t take up much space, won’t say a word unless he’s spoken to. He just doesn’t want to be left behind. And Grey can tell that every new desperate syllable he utters is just chipping away at Brienne’s resolve to leave him — even as her steely face reflects nothing.

“You _have_ to take us with you,” Jaime says to Yara and Brienne — diverting Brienne’s attention away from Pod.

“We don’t have to do jack, Kingslayer,” Yara says.

Jaime’s jaw clicks — as he tensely clenches. And then he turns to Grey — strategically — and he says, “She’s not in good state, man. She’s hurt. She’s lost a lot of blood. She’s very weak. And she’s . . . the master has taken an interest in her. Do you understand what I mean?”

Grey says nothing.

“Fuck.” Jaime sharply inhales. “So you don’t have room for two more people. So that’s the reality. So take her. And leave me.” Upon the entire room’s silence, Jaime says, _“What_ would be the fucking point in _lying_ to you about all of this!”

 

 

  
Grey tells the rest of them that he will go with Jaime. The rest of them should make preparations to board the ferry to Tolos. He will meet them within the hour — if he’s going to make it at all. There’s no sense in all of them risking their necks for this. It only makes sense for it to be him — because he has known Missandei.

Yara crosses her arms and she says that this has turned into a real shitshow — they’re amassing an army of fucking orphans, cripples, and women. She spits out the last word bitterly. She tells him that it’s his fucking funeral, if he insists on going out there to chase a ghost.

He refrains from telling that he has to. He just has to.

 

 

  
She locks the wheels before she grasps onto the rails, pushing her toes weakly against carpet, to get enough traction to get back into the chair. Her chains lightly rattle against metal. She no longer even registers the pain in her arms. She’s just frustrated by their ineffectiveness. She’s just pissed at her broken, weak body. She has counted — it’s been about five minutes. They will be checked on in about fifteen minutes — that will be when they stumble on Kraznys’ dead body on the bed. That will be when they start looking for her so that they can burn out some explanations from her.

Missandei whimpers and cries, as her sweaty, slippery hands clench down tightly on metal and vinyl. She counts to three in her head — before she musters up one big burst of strength from her weak legs, painfully knocking her body against the chair.

 

 

  
Grey follows Jaime from a distance, hands near invisible as he steals a scarf from a stall. He walks into the crowd with it bunched in his palms, keeping an eye on Jaime, as Jaime walks through the square, oriented toward the other side. In a throng of people, Grey unravels the scarf and quickly wraps it around his head and his face — in a show of warding off the sun — but really to hide his now-foreign face.

The first time he stole something — it was candy. It was Western candy that his mom refused to buy. And he had lacked the knowledge and the wisdom and the practice. She found the plastic wrapper in his trashcan, after he had already eaten the chocolate. And she was so livid that she just hit him with a switch for what felt like hours. She had told him that she didn’t make a thief — that they only take what they have earned and paid for. That became something he internalized in various convoluted ways. He has this bizarre sense of righteousness when it comes to taking from others.

And — his apparent talent for pilfering and hiding things didn’t come into play until much later in life.

 

 

  
There’s always a Blue standing guard at the door. And once she’s in her chair — that’s when she realizes that she’s just about dead. She covers Kraznys’ dead body with a blanket, covering up most of her blood, making it look like he’s asleep. Her shaky hands try their best to put her dress back on — but usually after these excursions, she looks like a mess normally anyway. She can’t pin the dress back on her body, so she just drapes it over most of her nakedness. She tries to hide her blood-smeared arms and hands as she knocks on the door. The guard at the door is fair-skinned — expensive — and Missandei quietly tells him she needs to go to the toilet, when he opens the door just a crack.

 

 

  
He waits outside in the heat and watches from a distance, as Jaime disappears into a structure held up by beams and rope. Long minutes pass before Jaime comes back out — staring straight at him. Jaime grimly shakes his head — signaling that Missandei isn’t there.

Which is not unexpected. Jaime Lannister is a fucking liar. And this is a wild goose chase. He’s being played because he is weak and Lannister knows how to manipulate his emotions. And to what end — he doesn’t even fucking know. He doesn’t even know what the point of this fucking torture is.

The seconds slowly tick by — as Jaime remains stock still — his face directed at the hot, dirt ground. He’s thinking — and then his body goes rigid. Grey straightens automatically, watching Jaime carefully.

And he starts running, too, when he sees Jaime start shuffling, picking up the pace remarkably, even carrying iron weight.

 

 

  
The one sort of vulnerable thing about Blues is that they are wholly bound by directives. They are unfailingly obedient to orders. She knows that she won’t be killed right away. She will just be swiftly managed, detained, and then sequestered until they deem it’s time to actually kill her in retribution. Kraznys has no sons, no heirs. There will be others who will rise up and challenge the seat. And she will be collateral damage in their politicking. She already knows how this works.

She’s rolling down the hallway, toward the elevators, as fast as she can. She’s favoring her left hand because her right is bleeding profusely and she doesn’t want to leave a trail of blood like fucking breadcrumbs.

She leans forward and punches the down button quickly, over and over, in succession. The elevator is painfully slow, and she keeps looking over her shoulder. Her hands blindly reach out, grasping at things — the wall, the shiny garbage bin next to the wall — trying to find some sort of weapon, some sort of sharp thing to defend herself with, when it comes down to it.

When the elevator dings, she starts rolling into it before the door even fully opens, running her wheels clumsily, jerking to a side, grunting.

 

 

  
Her body just about caves in on itself, when the doors open on the ground floor and she looks into the faces of Oranges, reflecting consternation. She presses herself backwards in her chair — her eyes wide — she shakes her head — she says, “No, no no no,” and holds up her hands as two Orange women reach into the elevator and grab her wrists, their grip tight and painful.

Missandei gets pulled out of the chair and gets dragged a few short feet out of the elevator, the pins on her dress scratching her skin — slicing thin, bloody lines into it before it releases its hold, before she’s naked again, her knees scraping the carpeted ground as she’s yanked forward with inhuman strength, her chains dragging against the ground.

“Where are you taking me!” she says, trying dig her feet down to stop the forward momentum. It’s ineffective. She sees sunlight just beyond the doors. “Stop!”

She’s the only one that lets out a tight, muffled grunt of shock — when the head of an Orange explodes next to her — a messy splatter of blood, bone debris, and hair hits the side of her face. Missandei’s right side collapses and she hits the floor painfully — her elbow slams down and it’s bone-jarring. She accidentally bites down on her tongue and fresh tears bleed out of her eyes. There’s ringing in her ears — as the body of the decapitated Orange slowly slumps to the ground.

She coughs, dripping blood — not hers — and spit — hers — from her mouth into the ground. She lurches forward and tries to raise herself by her hands, and she gags shakily and pushes forth effort keeping bile down her throat.

“Oh my God.” She feels a hand on her back, and then her arm. And then she sees Jaime’s stump.

And she immediately starts crying as he moves to pick her up. “I’m so sorry,” she croaks. “I’m so sorry. I didn’t listen.”

“It’s okay,” he says quietly, soothingly. “It’s okay.” He deposits her back in the wheelchair. She looks up just in time to see an iron pipe viciously get slammed right into the face of the other Orange, at the end of a wide arc. It’s a messy way to die — and gruesome. She flinches and shuts her eyes — she hears the faint thud of the body dropping the ground.

When she opens her wet, blurry eyes — he’s pulling off his blue headscarf — only lightly speckled with blood. And he’s not looking at her as he quickly reaches out to yank her left arm. He quickly and tightly winds the scarf around the bleeding crook of her elbow. He mutters to Jaime — tells Jaime to cover her up. Her mind is fighting to catch up with what is happening — the sun is so bright that it hurts. He’s this shadow — this silhouette as he peeks out the window.

It’s a familiar sight. She remembers seeing him peering out of windows — she remembers watching him do it all the time. And it can’t be right at all.

They hear thudding footsteps from upstairs. Her head feels heavy. Her vision is blinking in and out — it takes her a while to realize it’s from the opening and closing of her eyes. And she hears him say, “She’s losing too much blood.”

And then she says, “Grey?”

 

 

  
After she passes out — which is probably for the best, though it is very worrisome — Grey picks her up because Jaime is also chained at the hands and feet — also low on energy and weak. Jesus Christ, this shit is fucked up. He nods at Jaime — this silent agreement that Jaime is gonna lead their asses out of here.

She’s boneless in his arms — and even with the chains on her limbs, she feels lighter than she looks — which is also worrisome. She must be severely dehydrated. And they go out the side door. Jaime mutters to him that they are so fucking dead meat. And it’s something Grey wholeheartedly agrees with. They are so fucking toast. They are leaving a decaying mess of dead matter in the middle of the fucking lobby. It's only a matter of time before a world of hell and chaos falls down and tears this city apart.

So there’s nothing elegant left. There’s nothing stealth left. He just quickly leaves the building with a bleeding, unconscious, mostly naked woman in his arms. They are a soiled mess. His face is exposed. And it doesn’t matter anymore. And Jaime is pushing through the crowd of curious, sometimes stunned faces. It’s only minutes that they have left — and Grey pushes himself into run as the din of the crowd gets louder and louder — until they start shouting in Low Valyrian — shrieking that he has hurt some woman — that there is someone dangerous in their midst.

He’s grateful that it actually affords him a wider berth. People scatter in panic — they run away from him in their panic.

 

 

  
He only utters one word — and only to Brienne — when he dips down — exhausted — holding Missandei and her chains up, just on the strength of fumes now. He keeps calling her Missandei in his head. He’s still not altogether sure that she is that person. It’s been a long time, and he doesn’t trust any of his memories anymore. He is just fucking lost. And he says to Brienne, “Please.”

“We can’t get everyone on the ferry,” she says helplessly.

“I know,” he says, staring back at her, swallowing the lump in his throat. He has none of the fucking answers here.

“Get in the car,” Yara breaks in decisively. “Right now. _Everybody.”_

 

 

  
Brienne is tearing down the road, swearing under her breath when the tires spin and the car jerks angrily to the right, of its own volition. Yara is permanently swiveled around, watching attentively, her head bumping against the roof of the car as Brienne speeds down the bumpy dirt road. Grey reluctantly hands Missandei over to Jaime in the backseat, as Pod crawls into the trunk, as Grey helps the kid dig around for a change of clothes — a shirt at least. The middle console of the seat is down and they yanked out the plastic divider, so that they can see Pod.

“Her pulse is weak,” Yara says grimly, lifting her finger from Missandei’s clammy neck.

The next checkpoint is thirty miles away, and they need to put as much distance between them and Astapor as fast as possible. They’re not gonna get through the checkpoint looking this fucking insane.

Grey peels off his shirt — soaked with his sweat and her blood — and he shakily pours a little bit of precious water into it from the bottle that Pod hands him. He rubs at her red hands and arms, trying to get as much of the dried blood off as possible. After he’s done the best he can, he shoves his soiled shirt back at Pod and takes the clean long-sleeved shirt and a stiff blanket that Pod pushes at him.

“Thank you,” Jaime says, looking down at Missandei’s face, his voice low — speaking for the first time in what feels like a really long time.

“Elevate her arm,” Grey says, as he slides the blanket over her body.

 

 

  
When they are within five miles of the checkpoint, Brienne roughly pulls over on the side of the road. It’s expansive and bleeding hot — just fine sand for miles and miles in all directions. Grey pulls on a clean shirt before he kicks his passenger side door open. He stoops over and he picks up Missandei, cradling her back in his arms, careful not to get her blood on his body. And he has not even allowed himself one moment to even think about what any of this even means.

The trunk of the car pops opens. Pod rises and climbs out — damp with sweat. He quietly says that it’s really hot in there — not so much a complaint as much as it is a statement of caution.

Grey feels such fucking regret and self-hatred, as he lowers her body in the trunk, pushing some more of their clothes under her head as a pillow. Jaime quietly shuffles over. His good hand touches his face — his beard — and his green eyes rises to meet Grey’s — and he says, “I’ll take care of her,” right before he winces and crawls into the tight quarters of the trunk, chains rattling. God, when they get past the checkpoint, they can start worrying about getting those fucking chains off.

Grey tells Jaime to watch his feet — before Grey slams the trunk shut.

 

 

  
Yara laughs suddenly, like a lunatic, right after Brienne starts the car again. She looks at Grey in the rearview mirror — and she says, “What is even _happening,_ right now?”

“Shh!” Brienne hisses, staring ahead as the checkpoint gets nearer and nearer.

 

 

 

 


	8. eight

 

 

  
About fifteen miles beyond the checkpoint, under a canopy of shade from the heated car and a lone tree that they have stumbled across in the desert, Brienne is on her knees in the hot sand, diligently working the padlock on Jaime’s chains — the ones hanging off his elbows in a humiliating and emasculating display — with some bits of wire she’s found and bent. Pod is hovering quietly nearby, attentive and nervous, his eyes darting around. The car shields them from the eyes of onlookers who drive by — but there’s no telling which good Samaritan will pull over to investigate whether they need help.

“I thought you were good at this?” Jaime says mildly, sitting in the sand, keeping his haggard breathing steady as sweat rolls down his sunburnt face.

“I _am,”_ Brienne says in frustration, her face red and sweaty. “With the right tools.”

Yara — who’s been keeping a lookout — tells Pod to switch places with her. He immediately skitters over to the driver’s side of the car, obediently standing straight, eyes scanning the empty road ahead and behind them.

Grey flips the wet towel on Missandei’s forehead — she’s still unconscious — before he goes back to getting her to drink some water without wasting it into the burning ground — without drowning her.

Yara walks around to the trunk, which is ajar. She bends over in the shadow it of, rifling around until she pulls out a screwdriver. Her face is blank and impassive — even and steady and dangerous — like she’s not the daughter of Balon Greyjoy. She bends down to the ground and picks up a heavy stone with both of her hands.

Yara slides easily to her knees, her jeans scuffing the ground, putting the rock down as she examines the padlock at Jaime’s feet, getting her face close to it. Her nose delicately wrinkles. “You smell like a cow,” she tells Jaime, who simply shrugs off the insult. Then, she jams the screwdriver into the keyhole of the padlock. She holds it face up to the sky. She says to Jaime, “Hold this.”

He says, “What — are you serious?”

She gives him a look — that conveys her seriousness. After he warily takes hold of the lock with his only hand, keeping the screwdriver pointed to the sky, she says, “Don’t move.” Right after that, she slams the stone down onto the head of the screwdriver — just narrowly missing Jaime’s face. Yara leans her face back to the padlock and examines it, pulling the screwdriver out.

Her face is victorious, when she shows Brienne that it’s unlocked.

 

 

  
When it comes time to free Missandei’s hands and feet, Yara kind of hesitates. She says, “What if I accidentally hit her?”

From behind, Jaime is awkwardly trying to rub his freed sore elbows and his ankles, as he says, “Oh, where was this concern five minutes ago?”

 

 

  
After the chains are off, Brienne automatically goes about dressing Missandei with some of Yara’s clothes, gently pulling Missandei out of Grey’s grasp. She mutters something about being a chick — and he is reminded of Brienne’s general rigidity when it comes to these kinds of procedures. He is generally unfazed by naked female bodies — having been exposed to many. This time though, he is grateful for Brienne’s consideration. He thinks that Missandei would appreciate it, too.

 

 

  
The sun is low in the sky — the sky is amber, gold, and pink — as they roll into a the motel, a nondescript brick building butted up against other brick buildings. It’s three stories, and Brienne pays for a room with the modest amount of money that Catelyn Stark has given her. The motel owner lifts his eyes from the tiny glowing TV screen droning on next to him — his belly heavy and his shirt stained with motor oil. He smells like stale sweat, body odor, spices, and fryer grease. His eyes skim over him and Brienne silently as he makes change — he’s a professional. But he’s also curious by how fucking weird they look together.

Grey points his gaze to the TV. In Low Valyrian, he asks what the score is.

He gets an inky smile — the electricity buzzes for a moment — as the motel owner tells him the game just started. It’s 8 to 4. He says their boys are winning — automatically aligning Grey and the dark skin and the accent — with himself.

 

 

  
Pod hefts the heavy bag of their dirty clothes onto the bed as Yara quickly ushers the rest of them in, keeping a paranoid eye halfway out of the door.

Brienne reminds Jaime that he stinks — he should take the first shower. And she also suggests to Grey that he should accompany Jaime —

Her face flushes bright red when she realizes how it sounds. Her words stutter to a stop — as she wades in her embarrassment for moment, as Jaime kind of laughs in surprise — and then she admirably recovers. She stands up straighter and she tells them that none of them altogether trust Jaime. So Grey will hang out in there while Jaime showers to make sure nothing is amiss.

“Or I can just leave the door open?” Jaime says, tone relatively innocent.

Brienne says nothing. Her lips are just in a tight line.

“What do you think I’m gonna do?” he says now, getting a little agitated. “Attack you all with soap and my one hand?” His eyes fall on Missandei’s body, lying limply on the bed next to the bag of laundry. “And why should I trust you all alone with her?” he asks rhetorically.

“Shut up,” Yara says, shoving Jaime aside as she pushes past him, toward the bathroom. “I’ll shower first then.” She snaps the door shut decisively.

 

 

  
He leaves the motel room to let Brienne and Yara take care of Missandei — stripping her down again, sponge-washing her on the bed before clothing her again. Jaime stays behind, presumably because he and Missandei have gotten close. And that’s not something Grey particularly enjoys thinking about. But whatever.

He takes Pod down to the laundry room of the motel, the rattle of coins in his pocket that he had snuck from trays and pockets, here and there over the last day, before all of the chaos in Astapor.

Grey was going to just buy detergent, but when he spots a plastic bottle sitting innocuously on a machine, dried soapy bits leaking out of the bottom of the cap like dried snot, he uncaps it and takes a sniff. He tells Pod it smells alright — like it’s supposed to.

Pod sits on the washing machine as it comes to life, his feet lightly hitting the back of the machine as Grey stuffs all of their clothes in, including his blood-soaked shirt.

“She’s your friend?” Pod asks. He quickly clarifies. He says, “I heard Brienne and Yara talking while you were gone — going to get her.”

Grey crosses his arms over his chest. He says, “We used to work together.” He refrains from sharing any other detail. It’s not hard to stop himself from talking about how the few minutes he and Missandei used to spend joking around or just talking about the weather together in between shit they had to do were the highlights of his whole fucking days. It’s not hard to stop himself from revealing just how fucking pathetic and starved he was for just some normalcy and kindness from some pretty girl who was nice to him because they had to spend all this time together because of their jobs.

Right away, his brain knows it’s doing her a disservice, by calling her some pretty girl.

“I hope she’ll wake up soon,” Pod says. “It’s so horrible, what happened to her, what happened to Jaime.”

 

 

  
Jaime is out of the shower, smelling a million times less like dog shit — by the time Pod and Grey get back to the room with a warm load of their laundry. Pod diligently gets to work folding their clothes on the floor, after laying a towel down as a barrier between the floor odors and their clean stuff. Grey catches Brienne looking down at the kid — her bright eyes a bit tortured and heavy. He thinks that he should tell her that she’s doing the right thing — the kid was dead in Astapor anyway — especially given the fallout of what had happened — she’s not putting him in any more danger than he was already in.

Grey walks over and examines Missandei’s wounds — she has a deep cut in the crook of her elbow — really shitty stitches sewn in that will leave scars — and she has a cut in the center of her palm — with shitty stitches that will leave scars. Her wounds are throbbing red — on their way to infection — and it makes him concerned.

He has had fairly solid first aid training. As Brienne has said — they all have had the training. They just lack the proper equipment. And it’s this stupid joke — that they are rendered so completely useless without their tools.

Grey rummages in a bag, pulling the sides apart as he examines the contents. He pulls out cotton thread and a sewing needle — pulls off one foot of thread before he goes into the bathroom and starts washing both the string and the needle, with hot water — as hot as it will go considering most of the room has taken a shower — soapy water.

“I hate to be that guy,” Jaime says from the doorway. “But do you know what you’re doing?”

Grey completely ignores him. Because Jaime is so fucking annoying. Grey kneels on the floor and flips on the side table lamp. He gets in close to the wound on the elbow and examines it with his eyes before he carefully takes his clean hand and presses the two raw sides of her cut shut. It’s a good thing she’s asleep — because this would be fucking painful awake.

 

 

  
Jaime kind of chuckles from his lying position on the ground, in the dark. His voice is fond and warm, as he tells them all that Missandei is just a nonstop motherfucker-bitch — just an onslaught of conviction. The strong line of familiarity in Jaime’s tone makes Grey wonder — not at all for the first time — he’s probably becoming obsessed with this — just what the fuck Jaime’s fucking relationship with Missandei is. And it’s a bitter feeling that he squelches down because he is such a fucking moron. He keeps telling himself his own head is just messing with him. It’s not the person. It’s not situation. It just his fucking losses — that makes him feel the way that he does. It’s just something metaphorical and broad. It’s just something that speaks to the broader pattern of his life — and thus — it is something silly and pointless that he needs to do a better job of, at shutting down.

“How on Earth did you, of all people, end up in Astapor?” Brienne says, voice quietly floating in the air.

Jaime’s deep chuckle is hollow. He says, “My dad sold me.”

 

 

  
Her eyes are scratchy and dry, when she finally opens them. She’s been awake for what feels like forever — and also for what feels like no time at all. But it was a barely cognizant sort of awakeness. It was really her pain that spurred her brain into real action. Her arm and hand is _burning._ Her whole body is burning hot. And she almost indulges herself and wonders if it was all a dream — but she already knows.

She killed a man. She has no regrets there. She is somehow still alive. And she saw or hallucinated Grey because, in her weakened, near-death state — she just wanted to torture herself.

“Hey, careful.”

 

 

  
Pod is now his shadow. The kid constantly follows either him or Brienne around like a lost dog. An eager lost dog that only speaks when spoken to. Pod is right there, watching attentively as Grey haggles with a stall owner in Low Valyrian — this is why he took it upon himself to go out, instead of letting Brienne or Yara go — to try and negotiate for meat and fruit.

The stall owner, a woman about his age actually — tells him that he’s cheating her and that she’s already losing money — she can’t just give him food. She has a business to run. At that, his ears perk and he asks her what she means — by saying she’s already losing money. She stiffens, and she looks at him suspiciously. She gives him this quick diatribe about how this is her parents’ business, but they got sick. And because she is new, some of her big customers have taken advantage. Restaurants tell her that her dad and them used to have an agreement. Apparently one where they don’t have to fucking pay their bill.

Grey says if he can get her her money — without causing a fucking mess, of course — will she let him skim about 10 percent off the top. Just this one time?

She completely doesn’t believe him. It’s with a lofty amount of doubt clouding her voice, that she hesitantly shakes his hand on this.

 

 

  
Missandei generally just can’t believe it. She cannot believe she pulled it off — Kraznys, that shitstain of a human being, is totally dead and burning in hell like he should be — and she’s _not_ dead and burning in hell — like she should be. She keeps squeezing Jaime’s hand, to make sure that it’s real and he’s real. She is inundated with questions from Brienne and Yara — it’s so surreal — about where she’s been, what happened to her, how exactly she got to where she was.

Her voice sounds far away to her own ears — Jaime tells her that she’s hungry, that’s why. She doesn’t feel hunger, but she can’t remember eating anything in the long days preceding Kraznys’ death. The water that goes into her stomach feels foreign and uncomfortable and more than a bit empty — even as it fills her up.

And she risks it. She squeezes Jaime’s hand, feeling her own hand shake — and she asks the question as if she already knows the answer. She says, “Where did Grey go?”

 

 

  
He doesn’t even have time to translate to Pod and tell the kid what is going on. He just tells the kid to stay really close and to let him know if something seems really weird or off. Pod takes his job seriously — which Grey likes. It makes him remembers new recruits, back when he was in a certain line of work, for Daenerys — something so hazy and so far away now.

He takes them to a brothel.

There are flies buzzing around, and it’s quiet midday. He knows that the women are sleeping, resting. It’s partly to just pass away the oppressive heat — and it’s mostly because the bulk of their work — the most money they make — happens at night.

And Grey knows how to recognize good people from the bad. He also knows that the guys who work as enforcers — as bouncers and as guards — safety for the ladies — he knows who these guys are. He knows that a lot of them are just people trying to eke out a living. Many of them have their own wives, their own families. Many of them treat this like a job. Others of them treat it as more than a job — something about looking after and protecting women just tapping into something visceral and deep and masculine inside of them.

And they typically don’t have jack to do during the daytime. The high-stress part of their work only lasts for a few hours every night — as a multitude of bodies come and go.

Grey walks up to a really tall — taller than he is — really ripped — stronger than he is — brother. And in Low Valyrian, he asks the guy how it’s going.

The man tells Grey to come back in three hours.

Grey smiles sardonically. He tells the man that he’s not here for that. He actually has a business proposition for the guy.

 

 

  
Grey and Pod casually hangs back, quietly watching Ilyas talk to some squirrely gutless shitfucker about some unpaid bills. Pod’s eyes are wide and just drinking up every detail — this whole world is new and foreign to him. He’s scared to utter a word — and that’s exactly how Grey likes it.

After the bill is squared away — Grey and Ilyas blink against the sun as they leave the building, Pod following behind quietly. Ilyas cracks this joke about how the little restaurant bitch was just about to piss his pants, as Grey smiles — showing his teeth — saying that his favorite part was when Ilyas had the balls to ask for interest payment — backdated — with a 20 percent late fee tacked on top.

They hit up a few more establishments, making short work of it all. Grey asks Ilyas if the guy will be able to handle this shit on a regular basis — if he worries about the restaurant owners hiring muscle. It’s sort of a trick question. As expected, Ilyas grins — sharp with aggression — and he tells Grey that he knows all the fucking muscle in town. Of course he does. They are his brothers. He’s not worried.

 

 

  
Mona is shocked when they push into her back room and unload the paper money from Ilyas’ pocket. They tell her to count it. She’s too stunned. And again — Ilyas urges her to count it. She makes no move, so in exasperation, he picks up the pile and starts snapping down counts really fast — with practiced ease. After he’s done — he tells her that she should always count her money.

Grey tells her that she should hire Ilyas. Maybe on a commission basis or something.

He thanks her when she tearfully peels off 15 percent and hands it over to him. He splits the money — just by feel — because he, too, can count this shit in his sleep — and he hands over the wad to Ilyas. In Low Valyrian, in his bastardized accent — peppered with slang words that are probably decades too old — he calls Ilyas his brother. He thanks him, and he says they will see each other again. It’s probably a lie — they will never see each other again. But it’s ingrained into this culture — this service-oriented culture — to never actually say goodbye.

 

 

  
Yara is pissed and pacing the floor — casting glances toward the door every five seconds. Then she’s ramrod straight. She suddenly and angrily announces that she sees that motherfucker — when she spots him out through the window of their room.

Missandei’s heart is just hammering in her chest. They had taken her at face value. They had told her that Grey took Pod — a kid that they found — to go get some food. They told her very casually — acknowledging his presence and his existence like it was nothing, like it was mundane and normal — and they have been bitching about him ever since. Yara’s been griping about how he’s apparently so much more trouble than he is worth. Yara keeps darting accusations at Brienne, muttering that it was Brienne’s fucking idea to bring a fucking PTSD psycho on this fucking excursion. Which has become a complete and total shitstorm of a venture.

Their footsteps are audible. Missandei’s eyes are already crying. For what — over what — she doesn’t even know why. No one except Jaime notices. She feels him hovering nearby.

Yara is immediately in his face when he opens the door. She knocks herself into his chest — scaring the kid, who is holding a plastic bag full of containers, into taking a step backward — and she says, “Where the fuck have you _been?_ We said fucking twenty minutes and you’ve been gone for two _hours,_ you fucking _bastard._ Who the fuck do you think you are? You’re gonna get us all killed, you _fucking asshole.”_

Pod looks scared. And Grey pulls out a flap of bills — a wad of cash — and he slaps it back at her — in the center of her chest. “Went and got this,” he says, stunning her into silence. Then he directs his attention to Brienne and only Brienne. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to not tell you. An opportunity just came up, and I took it.”

“It was so _cool!”_ Pod says — in awe — quickly bouncing from his fear, as kids often do.

“Where’s _my_ fucking apology?” Yara says, now clearly placated and just coming down from her self-righteous hissy fit. She palms the money he’s offering her and starts to count it. “Holy shit,” she whispers. “Who did you fucking kill? Do we need to start fucking running again?”

“Nah,” he says. “It’s fine.”

Yara lifts her head up to look at the rest of them. “See? I told you this guy was worth his weight in gold.”

 

 

  
They’re all trying to get her to eat — but she just can’t see past the blur of tears in her eyes. She starts crying in earnest. She can hear Jaime crack a joke — something about how she can’t afford to lose anymore water from her body because she’s been bleeding all over the damn place. She can feel Jaime’s hand on her back. And it all sort of comes flooding back.

Grey kind of left like a ghost. He left without really saying goodbye or offering many explanations. And it was unexpected, the way it hit her. It was kind of devastating. And she even thought she was carrying on really well — considering they were just colleagues — until the day Dany gently pulled Missandei into her office and told Missandei that she should take a few days off. There were all sorts of platitude dropped — change is hard, loss is hard — especially when it comes to someone you love.

And it was just this bizarre exchange of words — that felt wholly inaccurate to what he was to her. And in her moments of anger over him leaving — she kept telling herself that he owed her nothing. He was never hers. They weren’t even fucking friends. They occasionally bantered over coffee. She occasionally made jokes about his gun — these stupid double entendres that he pointedly ignored. They had plans for a date that never got off the ground. That was fucking _it._

“Hey, you have to eat,” Grey says to her, edging closer with a container of food.

“You _left_ me.” The words just dragged themselves out of her throat. In another life, she would’ve kicked herself for being so fucking emotional and clingy.

He halts. He hangs his head down low. And then he says, “I know. I’m sorry.”

“Cut the guy some slack,” Jaime says — with fantastic timing, as always. “When given the chance, he risked his ass and went and got you. No hesitation. You’re alive because of him. So I mean, come on. Bygones.”

 

 

 


	9. nine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grey and Brienne take a trip to the pharmacy.

 

 

  
The food is tasteless — to her at least. Everyone else is scarfing it down like they haven’t eaten in days — and they probably haven’t. The mood in the room considerably lifts as their stomachs fill up — they start joking around with each other — passing comments back and forth over her head. And she just keeps pushing stuff into her mouth, her face oriented down at the container of rice and meat in her lap. She feels nauseous. Her vision wavers in and out. She just can’t stop herself from grieving, so abstractly and pointlessly. She just keeps crying. She’s pathetic and stupid, as she eats to build up her strength and quicken her healing, crying as she replenishes the liquid she has lost with dull gulps of water from a bottle.

“I know it’s a lot to take in,” Jaime says quietly beside her. “Trust me. I was . . . pretty inconsolable after I lost my hand. So I get it.” He nudges her. “But you’ll feel better sooner than you think. I promise. It’s remarkable, the way human beings can get used to almost anything, given time.”

His words make her jaw quiver, as her vision turns back to a smear of light and color. She wants to tell him that their experiences aren’t the same at all. They aren’t comparable. In a certain sense, the loss of his hand is more severe. She has walked away with all of her body parts intact. In another sense — the nature of each respective violation is also wholly different. They can’t quantify them. They can’t compare to each other.

 

 

  
He feels really shitty. So he makes himself to load up the car in the parking lot by himself — he’s kind of punishing himself through some weird form of ostracism — he tells himself that he’s a real stupid and cowardly piece of shit.

He also rationally tells himself that he owed her nothing. They were nothing to each other.

 

 

  
Yara mutters that she can’t believe they have to drive their fucking asses to Tolos when it could’ve been a relatively quick ferry ride. The words are already out of her mouth before she winces, realizing and remembering that the reason they are behind on their schedule is because they were helping Missandei and Jaime.

Space in the back is tight. Pod cheerfully tells him that he doesn’t mind being in the trunk, which is just this startling young, heartbreaking kind of thing. Brienne tells him not to crawl back there — it’s too hot for him to stay there for very long. He will die of a heat stroke before they even get to the next checkpoint. She directs Pod to squish his body at Grey’s feet instead, wedged between the back of Yara’s seat — pulled far forward — and the edge of Grey’s seat. Grey has to raise a leg to give Pod enough room, bracing his foot against the center console between Brienne and Yara. Missandei is in the middle, in the backseat. She’s glued to Jaime — they can’t be far apart at any given moment. And every bump and swerve results in his body skimming her body somewhere.

And it’s not like he doesn’t know exactly what happened to her and Jaime. That’s the thing — he knows exactly what happened to them. And it is just fucking horrific and beyond the scope of what human beings should be capable of. And it is why he’s too fucking lost in his own self-indulgent wallowing to even begin to provide any sort of reassurance or comfort to her.

He also doesn’t even know her anymore.

“How are you feeling?” Jaime says, over the drone of the car.

“A lot better, actually,” Missandei says with determination, even as sweat makes her face shiny. “Stronger. You guys were right. I needed to eat.”

Jaime reaches up to touch her face — in a deeply familiar gesture. “You tell me if it turns, okay? If you start to feel sick again.”

 

 

  
Brienne is fiddling with the radio dial as she drives, scanning the sparse stations that are still in operation. Looking at Grey in the mirror — because she can’t understand or speak Low Valyrian — she tells him to tell her when to stop.

“Is that the name of your sextape?” Jaime’s laugh is low and quiet, as Missandei lightly hits his chest with the back of her good hand. She’s telling him to stop being such a jerk — she’s telling him to be nicer. Jaime pats her on her knee — Yara’s is about the same height as Missandei, but thicker and more muscular — so Yara’s clothes kind of hang off Missandei’s slight body. Jaime tells Missandei that he was just joking around — no ill-will meant. He tells Missandei that Brienne gets that he’s just being friendly by joking around with her. He leans forward and peers at Brienne, who is singularly focused on driving forward, and not shoving her fist into his face. He says, “Right, beautiful?”

“Call her by her name, you jackass,” Yara grits out.

“Stop,” Grey says suddenly. “Go back to that station,” he says, clarifying, listening carefully.

It’s actually a pop station, but the announcer is dropping a little of news right before commercial break. He says that after one of the Masters of Astapor was found dead in his bedroom — they suspect autoerotic asphyxiation — something that the deejay lightly laughs over — East Astapor has been a chaotic mess as the other Masters try to take control, as restless slaves try to take over that section of the city. The deejay’s tone deepens and disappears in a slight moment of reverence — before he cheerfully says that it looks like it might rain over the weekend.

Grey risks a look at Missandei. Her face is tilted toward the ground and impassive.

“Well?” Brienne says expectantly. “What’s happening back there?”

 

 

  
Yara loses the draw and Jaime — who resents being treated like an invalid but that’s what he is — doesn’t even get to draw. And it was always a given that Grey would go — because he’s the fastest and — if not the strongest — he’s the most trained and the most experienced. It was down to Brienne and Yara. It gives Yara another reason to grumble about him. He doesn’t really understand why she covets glory and death so hard — but he bites his tongue and refrains from saying that. She loses the draw, and she gets to stay behind to watch Pod, Missandei, and Jaime.

“To protect the women and children,” she bites out, casting a targeted glance at Jaime.

“Yep,” Brienne says breezily, cracking open the trunk, pulling up the sheet that is covering their guns. She automatically picks out one of hers — one of her old service revolvers. She grins humorlessly at him — clicking metal — checking the clip — before she tells him something vague about old habits and old comforts. He kind of smiles back at her and he picks out his own gun.

 

 

  
Missandei swallows the lump in her throat, as sweat carves its way down her face. She has a fever — it was hard to differentiate between it and the heat of the sun — but now she knows — she has a fucking infection. And it’s not lost on her at all — why they are carrying guns into a Walmart knockoff. It’s to save her from dying from an infection. And she has become this liability — this very thing she never wanted to become. She is this utterly useless damsel in constant distress. Her blood runs red and hot as she thinks, well, maybe it would’ve been better if she just had died — all of the countless of times she has had the opportunity to. Then she wouldn’t be this leech that constantly benefits from other people’s goodwill.

 

 

The mondo superstore feels very weird when they enter into it. Light filters through the dusty windows, up high. This used to be a hopping store. This used to be a lively city. But when the Walkers came — and by that — he means when the Masters paid good money to import in Walkers and supplant the existing labor force — when slavery gained a strong stranglehold once again in the Bay — the nature of the cities changed.

They de-industrialized, in a way. It reverted back to the kind of lawlessness from hundreds of years ago as the existing workers poured out of the city, abandoning their homes. It was called the great white flight — those who could afford to did leave. Those who couldn’t or who were too stubborn stayed behind.

It seems that In the span of only a few years years, what he remembers from his childhood — bright lights, technological advancement, electricity always on, bodies sweaty and condensed and packed full to the gills that even people lived and slept in stairwells — became dusty ghost-towns, littered with lost people, littered with walkers who have outlived their masters perhaps — mostly Purples and Browns — who have outlived their usefulness, who wander around without purpose.

“They have called it the great experiment that failed,” Brienne murmurs, blue eyes bright in the dim light of the superstore. Shelves are a mess — overturned and bent from looting that happened years ago.

In both of their memories, they remember muzak, filtering in overhead. It’s eerily quiet. They are about 50 miles away from their intended stopping point for the night. They’ve been quietly talking about how they can’t keep going on like this. They have to get a bigger car, or they have to lose some people. She confesses to him — as her eyes scan over a hideous purple shirt with a unicorn on it — that she feels responsible for Pod. He tells her that it doesn’t surprise him at all — however, Pod is not meant to be with them through to the end of this.

“Maybe we can leave him with Lannister, once we get to Tolos,” Brienne mutters. “They can board a plane back to King’s Landing or wherever it is they want to go.”

Grey’s gun is resting heavily against the base of his spine — he doesn’t intend to use it, but he supposes that most people don’t intent to use their guns when they carry — most reasonable people. He pushes up the aluminum shield up a little higher, as he smoothly hops onto the pharmacy counter and slides in underneath, dragging two aluminum bats that he had snatched up when they first walked it. Bullets are precious. And they are also loud as hell. They are a last resort.

The store was in the midst of some summer promotion, when it was shut down. He can hear Brienne following not too far behind. The pharmacy is also a mess — and the drugs are all expired — but he’s pretty sure that it only affects level of potency, if it all. He starts digging through the mess.

“What am I looking for?” Brienne asks, trying to read all the foreign labels.

“Anything that ends in I-N,” he says. “Ampicillin, amoxicillin, cephalexin, azithromycin — stuff like that. And anything that has the word hydrocodone or acetaminophen or profen on it.”

“Thank God you came and not Yara,” Brienne says, picking up a large bottle. “This stuff is not her strong suit. She didn’t have to get higher education because she grew up rich. Not that she’s not smart — she’s super sharp — she’s just only interested in whatever she’s interested in.”

“I didn’t go to college,” he says.

Brienne pauses. “Oh.”

He kind of chuckles at that, at her awkwardness, rounding around the corner — he has figured out that this stuff was arranged alphabetically — but not exactly. It is alphabetical sometimes. Maybe by its common name. And he fights hard to remember — the stuff his mom used to take. He can see the bottle on her side table. He can remember running downstairs to go get her a glass of water. He can remember sitting on her bed, over the covers, as her nails lightly scrape over his scalp in appreciation, right before she tapped the tablets into her hand.

Misoprostol.

 

 

  
She’s trying to practice walking — something that fucking little babies do. Jaime is being sweet and holding out his hand and his stump to her — like she is a fucking idiot baby — gently coaxing her into take a step forward by herself. Walking is remarkably easier without chains dragging her hands and feet down — but still a very awkward and unsteady endeavor. She’s trying to get better at it in the event that she needs to run for her life in the near future.

“What is up with your legs?” Yara asks, sounding characteristically callous.

“I was kept in a cage for a while,” Missandei grits out, focused on the walking. “And then I was chained. And then I lost my blood. And then I was drugged almost to death. So . . . it’s been awhile since I’ve fucking walked like a normal person.” Her value was mostly in lying down and taking it. Jaime, in contrast, was occasionally unshackled. Jaime, on occasion, got his exercise in. Whenever he had to go kill someone.

Yara holds her hands up, a peacemaking gesture. “I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant — fuck, it must suck that your legs are jacked. Do you think they’ll ever be back to normal? Or are you just like this for good now?”

“Yara!” Jaime suddenly snaps, making Pod jump, before Jaime turns around to glare at her over his shoulder. “Do you think about your fucking words before you speak?”

“Do _you?”_ Yara tosses back.

“Shut up,” Missandei shoves out, sweating with effort, as she takes a wobbly step forward. “Both of you just shut up. I’m trying to concentrate here. Trying not to fall flat on my ass.”

“Babe,” Yara says to Missandei, voice calm. “I’m just saying — I feel for you.”

“Thanks,” she says, her eyes drifting to the superstore.

 

 

  
He has just finished stuffing the pockets of his pants with a handful of birth control packs — something he is segregating from the antibiotics and painkillers in Brienne’s plastic bag — when they both freeze. They hear movement — rattle and a crunch of metal — faintly. He silently picks up his bat and signals for Brienne to stay behind him.

She has already told him how she feels about killing — she’s very reluctant to. She tells him she might have gone into the wrong line of work — it wasn’t exactly blood-thirst and the kind of oppressive problem of an overflow of testosterone that led her to be on the Starks’ security detail. It was probably this very naive sense of honor.

She didn’t need to explicitly tell him any of that. He knew it about her — within seconds of them meeting — that her motivations for doing what she did was nothing like Bronn’s opportunistic reasons, nothing like Sandor’s general resignation, nothing like Grey’s own fatalistic lack of options. She thought what she was doing was meaningful.

And he has told her that they aren’t really people — at least the Purples and Browns aren’t.

She has told him she knows that. She’s not some sappy idiot. She knows they aren’t really people. But they still occupy this vague, underdefined middle area. After all, isn’t that where the Starks, Targaryens, Lannisters, and Greyjoys all fucked up and went wrong? Their limited definitions and their assumptions on how people _feel_ and how people _emote_ and what makes them _human?_ Brienne has told him that the Purples and Browns are still sentient beings. She would have similar troubles putting down someone’s dog.

And much like dogs — they are easily spooked. And just like dogs, when they are scared, they bare their teeth. This is why just him and Brienne entered the building. There are very limited exits they can take out of this massive-ass building.

Brienne ties off her plastic bag. The door is rattling — being pounded on — shaking.

He deeply inhales — his heart is pounding. He hears and sees the locked doorknob to the pharmacy being twisted. He sees hands start crawling underneath the aluminum shield.

He signals her — out the door — he’s gonna open the door. He’s been taught to go into violence. It’s human nature to avoid being attacked — to run backwards in order to protect oneself. Grey’s been taught to run into it, toward it — when he feels threatened.

 

 

  
Missandei watches Yara casually play around with her gun as they all wait in the vacant parking lot of the abandoned superstore. Missandei asks Yara how, on God’s green earth, can she just be so nonchalant about this — how she isn’t just constantly jumping out of her skin as the seconds tick by. They could be _dead_ inside there already.

Yara checks her imaginary watch. She says, “Babe, we still have fifteen minutes before we need to be freaked out. Don’t worry about it ’til then. You do this enough times, it becomes old hat. Brienne has always come back alive, thus far. And I haven’t known Sourpuss for that long — but I feel like your man has a real knack for staying alive, too. So chill, babe. Chill. Were you always this anxiety-riddled way back in the day, when he was doing his job?”

“Actually,” Missandei says stiffly. “Yes.”

Yara lets out a low whistle. “Bummer. That sounds stressful. That’s why it’s better not to form attachments. I mean, Brienne’s my girl and all — but I mean, we know what we signed up for. I’ve already mourned her death. I’ve already grieved it.”

“You’re full of shit,” Jaime interjects.

Yara smiles, casting her eyes at his hand — and then his face. She says, “Takes one to know one.”

 

 

  
The second he opens the door, there are way more than he anticipated. The door gets kicked in — and a swarm just flows into the pharmacy, pushing him and Brienne back. He fights to gain back his footing. He slams the heel of his bat — the range is too close, too tight — into the face of a Walker, who screeches and reaches to its bleeding face — just like a person would do.

He backhands the Walker, knocking it all the way to the ground before he stomps on its throat, breaking its neck.

 

 

  
Pod asks Yara how she learned to shoot a gun. She wryly tells him that her dad’s a hunter. For sport. He used to go on those safaris and hunt big game. When she was old enough — after years of begging — he started taking her on these trips. Those excursions were probably her formative education in firearms.

Her stance is wide, as she crosses her arms. She looks at Pod, and she asks, “Why?”

“Will you teach me?” he asks, his eyes darting to the piece hanging in her hand.

She frowns. “Knowing what I know now, you’re best off with just hand-to-hand defensive moves, kiddo.” She tilts her head toward her gun. “This is a last resort. It’s shit against a swarm of Walkers — and the loud sound just makes them all go fucking nuts and gets them more violent.” She pauses. “Guns are really only effective on humans — or Red and Blues, I guess.”

 

 

  
A thing that he knows about Walkers is that while they are very, very strong — they are also very, very brittle and relatively slow. It’s the nature of reanimated corpses. Fine motions are complicated. The further the body decay, the harder is it make it look real. He remembers the first time he put one down — the shock of bone snapping so easily underneath his foot. This is why just blunt force — committed blunt force, is the easiest way out. It’s a hard space to occupy, because there’s always that niggling fear in the back of their minds — that they might accidentally slam metal into the face of a child or a woman or just a person who is innocent.

He slams his bat right in the face of another and another and another, like he’s hacking through thick brush with a machete, his entire body going with the momentum of the bat so that all the power of his weight is behind every hit. He is getting soaked in pus and blood — the dark red, viscous Walker blood. He kicks a corpse over with his right leg.

But he supposes that it’s another one of those delusions they like to retain in their minds, to make coping with what they have all done easier. It’s probably no different at all. There’s probably nothing left in him that makes him any good. He can probably console himself all he wants, and say that he can recognize the difference — at the Purple and Brown levels, it is easy. Starting Orange up — it becomes a thing that makes him sweat hard. It’s not easy. It’s never easy. Perhaps his secret is that he also humanizes too much.

There are too many of them — and he and Brienne are just freaking the shit out of them, with their unexpected presence — he hollers out to Brienne — she has the bag of medicine — and he tells her that she has to fucking run for it when she sees an opening — he’ll be close behind. He swivels his head to look at her.

Right before he gets thrown and slammed into battered shelving.

He exhales out this grunt of pain — he was too fucking stupid and too busy paying attention to her — fire claws down his back as it scrapes against an exposed edge of shelving — fuck. He lands on his knees — it's jarring — as bottles of pills rains down on him. His bat is heavy in his sweaty hand, slippery — and it gets yanked away, disappearing into the mass of limbs. And he’s trying to get back up to his feet and reach for his gun at the same time — when he sees his bat coming down, held by a Walker. His hands change course. His arms reach up to protect his skull as he lunges forward, jamming his shoulder into the stomach of a Walker. Then both fall to the ground in a heavy heap. He rolls on top, pulls back his fist, and then uses his body weight to arc a punch right across the Walker’s face — over and over and over again. He feels the crunch of bones as the face caves in.

He digs his fingers into the Walker’s wet mouth — just like a person’s — and he rips out the jaw with a yank — too easy to be a person. The Walker screams in pain — real or a facsimile, he has never figured out. Grey tries to push back to his feet — but he gets kicked back down.

And then a wet splash of putrid, decayed body matter just hits him square in the face.

Brienne’s grim expression — speckled with blood — looms over him before she holds both ends of her bat in her hands, flips it over the throat of the Walker that kicked him, and roughly yanks up, cracking bone as the Walker goes limp in her arms. She’s a mess — but in one piece. There are bloody handprints running down the front of her ripped shirt.

He gets to his feet. He pushes her back toward the opening in the doorway.

 

 

  
“Fucking shit,” Yara hisses when she spots them, as she rips the driver’s side door open. Then she bellows, “Get back in the car! Get back in the car right now!”

 

 

  
The adrenaline is coursing strongly through his veins and it’s keeping him afloat and moving fast. But he can tell that he’s not in a good state. He’s probably not in a dire state — but he is definitely bleeding more than he’d prefer. He’s sprinting hard, overtaking Brienne.

“What the fu —” He hits the side of the car — or rather, the side of the car hits him. It’s enough to knock the wind out of him and make him hit the ground again — but not enough to kill him. Brienne is right there behind him, her hands slipping underneath his armpits as she lifts him back up to his feet, as the doors open.

Brienne shouts, “Fuck! Why did you hit him!” as she roughly shoves him through an open door, into the backseat  
  
“I didn’t mean to!” Yara shouts back. “I’m sorry! He was too fast. And I was all stressed out! Is he okay? Are we okay? Are we _okay?_ Holy shit.”

“I’m fine.” He is groaning, messily lying facedown across everyone in the backseat.

 

 

  
“Hey, bro,” Jaime says, wriggling a little bit in his seat as Yara gets them back on the road. “If you’re alright, can you like, lift your face off my dick?” Jaime clears his throat. “Shit, there is really never a good time to say that. Man, I’m so glad you guys are okay. Are you okay though?”

Grey feels his head being lifted. And then he feels a warm, calloused hand — Jaime’s — slide underneath his cheek. They hit a bump in the road, tweaking his back. And it just stings. It’s a little sore. It actually probably hurts. More than he would like for it to. His ribs don’t feel so good either — from being hit by the side of the car. He’s just kind of so fucking tired.

 

 

 


	10. ten

 

 

 

  
“Pull that out of his pants,” Jaime says to Missandei, referring to Grey’s gun. “It’ll be easier with that out of the way.”

Grey groans when Yara hits a bump in the road — it’s audible over the engine, so Yara calls out, “Sorry!” Missandei reaches out and holds onto the side of his hip with her hand, so that he’s not rolling around so much with each swerve. She hands Brienne Grey's gun.

Yara pulls over after only a few minutes — after probably only a mile. The car’s still running. The fan’s still blowing so they don’t immediately start sweating to death. And Walkers aren’t known for long-distance chasing, after all. They hate the heat too, after all. Missandei sees Brienne rifling through a heavy plastic bag, pulling out a brown bottle — rubbing alcohol. Yara snaps open a knife blade and she flips it, handing the rough handle to Missandei — who’s wedged in between Pod and Jaime.

“Jaime only has one hand,” Yara explains. “He might accidentally stab the poor guy or something. And you can’t trust children do this kind of shit.”

“Usually I’d protest,” Jaime says, looking a bit shell-shocked and bewildered. “But she’s right. I might actually accidentally stab the poor guy.”

“Please don’t stab me,” Grey mutters miserably, his face resting in Jaime’s hand.

Missandei takes the knife. His shirt is partially torn — he’s bleeding a lot and they need to get it off to see the extent of his injury. Pod helpfully reaches over and starts carefully ripping apart the fabric, making Grey jerk in pain as he pulls the sticky shirt from Grey’s skin — getting a little bit of Grey’s blood on his hands. Pod looks determined though, and he opens up the hole big enough — so that all Missandei has to do is cut through his collar and the hem. “Stay still,” she says to Grey, putting her hand on the back of his neck for a moment. He obediently freezes. Then she grabs ahold of the damp fabric in her hand and uses the serrated base of the knife to saw through the shirt.

She hands back the knife to Yara and carefully starts sopping up his blood with napkins leftover from their meals. The blood keeps pooling back up. Brienne mutters that it takes a bit for stuff to start clotting — but soon.

“It’s okay,” Grey mumbles, still face down. His feet lightly and accidentally hits Pod in the face. Pod reaches up and grabs Grey’s shoe, to stop it from happening again. He looks worried. “I’m okay,” Grey says. “And my blood — it’s safe. It’s clean.”

“Wasn’t even thinking about that,” Jaime lightly remarks, staring down at the mess in their laps — this blood-covered person in their laps. “But now we are.”

Brienne hands Missandei a paper napkin soaked with alcohol. Grey’s body automatically twists underneath her hands, on top of her legs — he repeats to them that he’s totally fine — when she gently presses the towel into his open wound and he hisses in pain. “Sorry!” she says, glancing helplessly at Jaime, who looks bewildered. He starts mouthing something silently to her — too fast for her to understand. But she thinks that Jaime is saying, holy fucking shit.

“No, it’s fine,” Grey says quickly. “It’s fine. I’m okay. You’re doing a good job, Missandei. Thank you.”

In the front seat, Yara is urgently asking Brienne what the fuck happened. Brienne says it’s pretty self-evident. There was like . . . a swarm, a den, a harem? There was a fucking colony of Browns and Purples camping out in the store — probably to escape the heat — and they were disturbed by the Grey and Brienne. So they got all pissed and started trying to fucking kill them. And it was a fucking close call — too fucking close for comfort. Brienne says she will not let them do this shit anymore.

“We needed the medicine pretty badly,” Grey mumbles. “Oh my God, speaking of — can you please fucking hook me up with some fucking shit in a pink bottle? _Brienne.”_

“This is the liveliest and chattiest you’ve ever been, man,” Yara says, as she watches Brienne frantically dig in the bag for the bottle Grey is talking about. “I like it. Maybe you should get maimed more often.”

 

 

  
They have to get cleaned up before they try to check into a motel. Brienne just doesn’t think that they can sneak five blood-covered people into a building without suspicion. Yara is the only one who doesn’t like an insane mess.

They can’t stop at a rest area. They can’t stop in any town. They just have to make due with the very sparse supplies that they do have. Brienne grimly says they have to use up some of the drinking water to get clean enough — they can buy some more once they get to the next city.

He tries not to audibly cry out when he shakily pushes himself up and off of Missandei, Jaime, and Pod — but his back feels like someone dragged a knife down his spine. He’s whoozy — from the drugs and taking them on an empty stomach — and the pain is merely at a low-pitched scream. His muscles feels stiff — he should’ve thought to grab muscle relaxers too — and now that the adrenaline has worn off — he finds himself limping a little bit.

“Pod, go help him.”

He’s waving Pod off. He pants, and he gently pushes the kid’s hands off of him — he says, “I got it,” as he hobbles around the car to the trunk, which is popped open.

“Oh my God, don’t be an idiot,” Yara says, advancing on him.

 

 

  
Missandei feels really bad for him — and guilty for being the inspiration behind the thing that got him so hurt. She also can’t help but keep a reasonable distance from him as they all exit out of the car, stripping off their blood smeared clothes so that they can change into clean clothes. Yara and Grey are a short distance away, with Yara hurling frustrated insults at him as she carefully and gently wrestles the rest of his clothes off of his body. Her face is condensed in irritation as he tries to escape her grasp, when she goes for the closure on his pants. Missandei watches as Grey’s face screws up in pain and his entire body twinges, with the sudden movement.

“Chill _out,_ Betty,” Yara testily says to him. “I’m not trying to date-rape you. You’re pretty and all but you’re _really_ not my type. God, will you stay _still?”_ She yanks at his pants roughly — startling him into a new tunnel of facial expressions that convey his pain — and he’s usually really stone-faced so this is alarming to all of them. Yara’s pushing through her anxiety by being gruff with him. She takes advantage of the distraction, unbuttoning his jeans, pulling down his zipper, pulling his pants down to his feet, taking his underwear — also soaked in some blood — down his ass before he loudly grunts and nearly face-plants into the hood of the car.

Missandei immediately turns around, to give him some privacy.

She hears Yara shouting. “Jesus, you’re such a fucking girl! Stop being so melodramatic! It can’t possibly hurt that much. Pod!” Missandei hears panic settling into Yara’s tone. “Help me!”

Pod scurries over, disappearing from her view — his face twisted in sympathy. She hears him quietly apologize to Grey before — she assumes — he carefully tugs off Grey’s sneakers, so that they can take his pants all the way off.

“Wait,” Grey says weakly. “I have stuff in those pockets. A pill bottle and some packages.”

“Oh,” Pod says. “I’ll save them for you. I’ll put them away for you.” Missandei sees Pod reappear in her vantage point, pulling out plastic packets out of Grey’s pockets, stuffing them in his bag in the trunk.  
  
Missandei sees Brienne — having already stripped quickly and put on a new change of clothes, having already wiped off her face and hands so that she looks less like she walked off a scene of a horror movie. Missandei sees Brienne dampening one of their shirts — a black one, so the lingering blood stains won’t be so noticeable — and Brienne leaves Missandei’s line of sight as she walks over to probably start wiping down Grey body with blank efficiency.

“Oh my God,” Yara grumbles. “You’re gonna making him self-conscious with your blushing! You act like you’ve never seen a dick before! Jesus!” There’s a short pause before Yara says, “Nancy, how you feelin’? You hanging in there, man? You gonna pass out on me, babe?”

 

 

  
He’s fucking miserable. His hands are splayed out in front of him — on the boiling hot car, a water bottle in his left — as everyone continues to either sop up his blood with soiled damp t-shirts or take the t-shirts back to the trunk to stuff into plastic bags. Yara is muttering that they wish he’d just stop bleeding already. He’s forcing himself to drink water to avoid dehydration and heat stroke and just general shock.

He yelps kind of loudly — when Yara slaps him in the ass — making him groan in a vague sort of humiliation at being manhandled and then stripped and then poked and then prodded — and in pain — the pain is always there. It makes him bend over more, sinking his sticky face into his arm — as she pulls clean pants back up his legs.

“You have a really cute tushy, Betty,” she says, laughing in relief, wiping her bloody hands with a t-shirt. “And you look reasonably normal again. Thank God for your skin color. It hides the blood.”

Brienne materializes next to him. Her face is still flushed, but determined. He appreciates that, he supposes. She drags a knife through an empty plastic bag. She regretfully tells him that they don’t have time for him to fully stop bleeding. At the rate he’s going, he’s gonna bleed through his shirt. So . . . they are going to tape plastic over his bandage — just until they can get into a motel room.

 

 

  
Brienne decides to splurge — because they have had a fucking trying couple of days — so she gets two adjacent motel rooms. She asks Missandei if Missandei minds if one of them bunks down with her and Jaime — that is, Missandei and Jaime. And Missandei kind of freezes at that — as the implication kind of sinks it. And she kind of looks around the interior of the car — she kind of looks at Grey’s profile, which gives away nothing.

“Dude, fuck yeah,” Jaime says, answering for her. “Fuck yeah, slumber party.” He spontaneously reaches out and hits his stump on Grey’s chest— making everyone in the backseat jump a little with anxiety. “You? Should we sequester all the sick and dying to one room and give all the healthy people a fucking break from taking care of our asses?”

Then he pushes his face out of the open window, to look at Brienne in the dwindling light. “You? Wanna bunk down together? I feel safe around you all of a sudden. I was wrong about you. You’re not useless. You’re a fucking beast.”

“Oh my God, shut up. I hate you,” she says dully.

“That was a compliment.”

 

 

  
Jaime insists on helping Grey walk to the room, pulling Grey’s arm over his shoulders. He casually chats as they make their way up the stairs — Grey’s hand gripping the railing tightly. Jaime lets Grey lean on him as he fiddles with the key. The motel is a two-story deal — a sad, dilapidated, rundown meeting place for lower end prostitutes and their tricks, probably. Brienne’s face was blushing red when she muttered to him and Yara that the manager offered her a rent by the hour deal — the implication being that he thought she was trolling the joint for sex. The nice thing about this motel is its whole air of don’t-ask-nothing-won’t-be-nothing.

Jaime drops Grey on the bed awkwardly. Grey uses his hands and elbows to crawl up it a little bit. His back is throbbing hot and burning. But — he was told by Brienne — he probably doesn’t need stitches. Probably.

“I’ll be right back,” Jaime says breathlessly. “I’m gonna go get the girl.”

He fucking hates that guy sometimes. And he fucking hates sleeping on his stomach.

 

 

  
After Jaime deposits Missandei on the bed — there are two beds — and it’s dark and so late — and Jaime stupidly puts her down on the same bed Grey is occupying — Jaime announces that he’s going to take a shower for exactly fifteen minutes. He tells the both of them that they can chat about whatever they want for fifteen minutes, then he’s coming back to eavesdrop.

Grey hears the shower spray come on. And then he feels her hand on his back. He feels his shirt get lifted up. He helps her pull it off his head by rising to his elbows. And then he winces as his bandages get pulled off — the plastic bag attached to his skin crinkles.

“We should air this out so it’ll crust over,” she explains, voice low. “It’ll be more manageable that way.”

 

 

  
She still feels whiplash. She feels whiplash over the fact that she was sold as a slave, over the fact that she was kept like an animal, over the fact that she killed a man, over the fact that she is apparently still alive — over the fact that he is also apparently still alive.

And back in her life. She’s been struck by stunned silence — by a perverse kind of shyness. Her existence over the last couple of days has just involved staying conscious and staring at everything strange and different with wide eyes. She wonders if she’ll ever catch up to reality — if this will ever feel normalized, like it’s her life.

“Thank you,” she finally says, sitting a good distance apart from him, with her knees drawn up to her chest. “You keep risking your hide for me.”

“Not just for you,” he immediately says, tensing on the bed. He pauses, before correcting himself. “But you did inspire some of it.”

“I wish you wouldn’t,” she says dully. “I’m not your problem or responsibility to take care of.”

“So you’d rather I just let you slowly die from an infection,” he says carefully, voice deep and moderated.

“I’m just saying — no one needs to be getting hurt because of me.”

“Oh, okay,” he pushes out — bitterness lacing his voice now. “My mistake. Next time I’ll just let you do you. And I’ll do me. And you’ll die or whatever. And it’ll be on my conscience. No big deal.”

“I’m _not_ as fucking helpless as all that,” she throws back. “I don’t automatically _die_ when you’re not around. I feel like that’s been made abundantly clear already. So why are you rewriting history?”

 

 

  
He decides to make the awkwardness and the tension so much more worse. Because honestly, she just doesn’t have the time to spare.

“I have something for you,” he says. He wiggles around on the bed, trying to free an arm. He reaches into his bag, which Jaime had dropped next to the bed, and a bottle of pills rattles. 

 

 

  
“Brienne already gave me a course of antibiotics.” And it — or the food in her stomach, or both — has been giving her diarrhea. Which has been awesome. She’s been eyeing the closed bathroom door, where Jaime is showering. Hopefully she can manage not to shit herself while she is having an argument with him. He’s already seen her naked, though. She’s sort of seen him naked from afar. She thinks that they are going about this all warped. It used to be that she was just jonesing for a date — just giddy that he paid her any attention. Now — she’s trying not to accidentally defecate on the bed that they are sharing. Fucking _life._

“It’s not antibiotics,” he says, before digging deeper in his other pocket and pulling out a crinkly couple packages of plastic.

Birth control pills.

“Oh,” she says, her voice lilting up. “You don’t think it’s too soon? I mean, we just met again and all.”

He freezes.

And she can’t help roll her eyes. This. _This_ feels like old times. “I’m kidding,” she says unnecessarily. “What are these actually for?”

“A high dose of these delays ovulation,” he mumbles, avoiding eye contact, lightly tossing two packets at her clasped hands. “You can still take the dose. It could still be effective. You don’t always have to take these the morning after.” He trails off.

And then she freezes. “Oh,” she says softly.

“So these —” He lightly rolls the bottle of pills toward her. He refuses to look at her in the face. And he says, “These are for — a chemical abortion. If you happen to need them later.”

“Oh,” she says, sounding bizarrely casual to her own ears. “You seem to know a lot about this stuff.”

He sighs. “I’m sorry,” he says.

And it pricks at something angry inside of her. And she says, “Don’t feel sorry for me.”

 

 

He quietly tells her that she’s supposed to take five active pills right now, and then another five pills twelve hours later. She resists slapping him in the face with rumors of Kraznys' infertility. And then she starts thinking about all of the other shitty things she could have already been exposed to, all the infections, all of the STIs. It pisses her off so much. And she thinks that at least infections she can clear up with the antibiotics she's already taking. Probably. She's too upset to really venture asking Grey about this.

And then she wonders if she’s really going to risk her health based on rumors and her pride.

And she bitterly thinks — what pride? What pride does she even have left? She’s utterly useless and helpless.

She starts breaking the package apart, ripping the plastic seam, pulling out the pack, popping the small pills out into her palm. He says nothing to her as she dry-swallows five of them.

 

 

  
She straight up tells Jaime — when he gets out of the shower — that she’d feel more comfortable sleeping with him. Jaime looks awkwardly caught in the middle, as Grey gingerly pushes himself up into a push-up — grimacing — before he slides his feet off the bed.

“Hey, do you need help?” Jaime asks Grey.

“I’m taking a piss,” Grey mutters. “And then I’m going to wash myself. I think I can fucking handle that by myself.” He’s carefully walking to the unoccupied bathroom with his bare back exposed and just looking completely insane — angry and leaking and red.

After the door shuts, Jaime turns back to her, tilting his head. And he quietly says, “Did I miss something? Your ex is so fucking moody.”

 

 

  
He regrets rejecting Jaime’s help. It takes him forever to take off his pants by himself.

He thinks it must be good for the water to beat down a little on his wound, as he mutely sits on the floor of the tub, grasping onto its sides so he doesn’t topple over from whooziness. The water makes his wound sting so badly and he constantly has to exert this control over his breathing so that he doesn’t start hyperventilating or just moaning and groaning in pain.

He realizes that he can’t sit in the shower forever. And he also has to save some hot water for her — and there he goes again — being fucking considerate. It is so fucking offensive. Surely.

He hits the handle of the shower with the heel of his hand, and then his entire back is aflame and screaming as he lifts his naked body up into standing position. He doesn’t even know how the fuck he’s going to get his clothes back on. He’s still not used to the constant presence of people. If he was alone and had privacy, which is what he has been used to for the last decade or so — his nakedness would be a fucking non-issue. But he doesn’t want to go offending anyone with his fucking body. And there he goes again, being so fucking considerate.

He just wants to slam his fucking fist into his own face, as he uneasily bends over — stretching his wound — and attempts to pull on underwear.

And that’s it. That’s all he can manage.

 

 

  
She and Jaime immediately hush up when the bathroom door opens. Grey’s face looks murderous as he steps out, balling his dirty clothes in his hands, shuffling over to the bed that he has to himself. He drops the clothes on the floor next to his bag and he gingerly lowers himself, face first, onto the bed.

“Hey, man,” Jaime says softly, getting to his feet. “Let me help you.”

“No, no. I’m fine,” Grey mutters, lightly pulling his arm out of Jaime’s grasp. He’s on his stomach, and he turns his face away from them. Jaime glances at her helplessly. And they both look to the exposed wound on Grey’s back.

 

 

  
Jaime automatically takes the right side of the bed, so that his left hand is in the middle between them. She likes to reach out to it sometimes — it’s comforting. She has found that, after feeling like she’s gone through death and hell and just the darkest dredges with a fellow — there’s a connection there.

And Jaime’s wearing Grey’s clothes.

And Grey is silent. He’s been stockstill and quiet in his bed from the moment they shut off the lights. It almost feels as if she and Jaime are alone. She comically wonders if Grey even snores, if he’s even capable of it. She can’t even hear him breathing.

Jaime squeezes her palm. And then he softly says, “When we get to Tolos, I’m going to get on a plane for King’s Landing. I — I need to see her. I need to see if she’s okay. Other than that — I have no idea what I’m going to find there, what’s even left.” He pauses. “Come with me, Missandei.”

 

 

  
He doesn’t really sleep. He just generally shut his eyes and rests his body. But pain in his back prevents him from getting much sleep. It’s when the sunlight begins to filter into the room that he feels that it’s okay for him to get up — to get up and take another dose of painkillers and antibiotics.

He pushes himself into sitting position — his wound has dried some and it feels stiff as he breaks little hairline fractures into the scab — bending over to retrieve the small bottle of mixed pills that Brienne had given him. He dry-swallows his dose, before he closes up the bottle and sinks his face into his hands. He feels pretty fucking low. He’s useless like this. He was so fucking stupid to begin with. He shouldn’t have gotten hurt the way he did to begin with. How in the fuck did he forget how strong those fuckers are? He’s such a fucking moron.

When he raises his face from his hands, he finds Missandei staring at him.

 

 

  
Missandei digs her nails into his meaty shoulder, when he tries to wriggle away from her, as Jaime continues snoring in the bed next to them. She tells Grey to — seriously — get the fuck over himself, because he really needs help. How does he honestly expect to put bandages on his own back?

She also tells him that his wound looks better. Well, it looks different. It’s bruising over and it’s also crusting over. It looks like it will heal without incident. 

 

 

 

 


	11. eleven

 

 

 

It takes them a good three days to get to Tolos. Missandei’s legs — thank God — get stronger and stronger, even as they spend long hours in a car each of those days. She can walk again — albeit awkwardly. It’s amazing what clean water and a constant supply of real food will do. Grey’s back continues to heal without incident — it’s just this painfully sore and itchy scab now — that he sometimes rubs against brick walls, whenever he gets a chance to. Pod has become his designated back scratcher, something Grey was really reluctant to engage in at first, but Pod is such a good and earnest kid.

Great. Now he’s attached, too.

 

 

  
Tolos is a flurry of activity — seemingly untouched by the mess of Astapor, hundreds and hundreds of miles away. Grey mutely doesn’t respond to Yara’s elated whoop — as she scrambles out of the car to look at the water — as she stretches her arms over her head. She tells them no offense, but she’s been going fucking stir-crazy sitting in a fucking car with them for hours on end. She eyes down a pair of Oranges — women — leaning close to each other, holding their scarves down over their heads, as the wind pummels them. It’s clear that they are Oranges by the way they are dressed — modestly — with their clothes probably hiding scars and wounds that they had before death.

He sees Yara shake off whatever she’s thinking. The sun is setting behind her. She says it’s too fucking late to go fucking get anything done — so they should just fucking relax for once — get some food in, get some fun in. Her hand snaps out and grabs Pod’s collar. She yanks him a step backward, making him yelp. She tells him that she’s about to change his entire fucking world.

 

 

  
He and Brienne watch despondently and stiffly, from across the small table, as Yara shamelessly flirts with the half-naked prostitute in her lap. Brienne is anxiously casting glances through the door that Pod disappeared behind — she had already expressed her strong disapproval — but no one paid her protests much mind. Yara told them that they’re living in a fucking lawless new world. The rules of the old don’t apply so much anymore. There’s no fucking thing such as honor left. There’s no such fucking thing as virtue. There’s no fucking such thing as being too young — when they live in a fucking world where children always die young.

Grey presses his frown into an even tighter frown, as Yara harshly slaps the ass of the prostitute — he thinks her name is Sarfaz. And there’s a bit of a language barrier — Sarfaz only knowing a handful of X-rated phrases and a few pleasantries. And when Yara tries to fuck with him and get him to be a translator for them — after she gets on his ass, _again,_ for not drinking — he stands up abruptly, leaving the table.

“Why are you so fun?” she bellows at his retreating back. And then her voice shifts into one with a harder edge. And she says, “You think your ascetic life full of self-restraint is gonna keep you alive? Don’t be stupid. We are _all_ gonna _die._ We’re all going to die. So, might as well have a bit of fun before the inevitable.”

He passes Missandei and Jaime’s table on his way out of the common area of the brothel.

 

 

  
She hates being in a brothel. It’s her very first time, and it’s just as horrible as she thought it would be. This was Yara’s idea. It was something Yara didn’t even think much about. It was something Missandei caught Brienne giving her sympathy-eyes over. That was something Missandei pointedly ignored because she’s fucking sick of all of their pity. It doesn’t match up to how she feels about herself — and she knows she’s already crumbling under the weight of everyone’s assumptions. She’s actually becoming that weak and helpless liability that they all see. She’s really sick of being in this fucking brothel and not being able to do anything for herself.

Jaime asks her what is even left for her. She tells him that King’s Landing was where she was sold. She’s not especially keen to get back to it. He tells her that she doesn’t belong with them — with Brienne and Yara — he hesitates — and he adds Grey’s name to the list. He tells her that she doesn’t fucking belong on their fucking suicidal journey. And it’s not only because she has no fucking dog in that fucking fight between the fucking Starks and the fucking Boltons — but because she’s not strong enough. She’s physically not strong enough. She fucking needs more time to recuperate. And she wasn’t even fucking made for this life — neither of them were.

Even Jaime thinks she’s a weak woman.

And — just to twist the knife a little bit more — Jaime tells her that if she goes with _him_ — with Grey — she’s going to get him killed. Because she’s his soft spot. He’s always going to fucking fixate on her and watch for her safety and get completely distracted by it. And that’s going to be the thing that gets him killed. Jaime tells her that if she cares about Grey — if she really cares about Grey and wants to give him a real chance at staying alive — she has to leave him.

Missandei slams the flat of her hand on the table, making some of Jaime’s beer spill over

“You _know_ I’m right,” Jaime says darkly.

 

 

  
She runs her fingers over his chest — she asks him where he’s from, where he’s going, and if she can help him relax for a while. Grey identifies the right number and the right kinds of bills by feel alone, in his pocket, and he holds the money up to her face. He tells her he wants an hour — she tells him the money is not enough for an hour. He grins at her knowingly. He tells her it’s enough. Especially because she doesn’t have to be in the room with him. He just wants to rent the space. She is free to keep hustling, if she wants. Or just relax. Whatever.

She looks at him suspiciously, before she fans out the money. She asks him if he’s sure.

He tells her that he’s sure.

 

 

  
He crawls onto the bed — his back fucking aches. He doesn’t want to take too many pain meds because of the side-effect. He gets loopy. He’s not alert when he’s loopy.

And he gingerly lies down on the bed. It’s heavily perfumed. And it’s bent — but it naturally reminds him of his mother. He carefully rolls onto his side — gazing around at the candles and the pillows. He just wants to take a short nap. He just wants an hour to himself, away from Yara’s judgement, Brienne’s anxiety, Jaime’s nonstop chatter — and even away from Missandei just fucking being unimpressed with him.

It used to be a real treat for him — on the slow nights — nights wholly unlike tonight. His mom used to hate slow nights because it meant no money. But he was just a stupid little kid — unaware of the greater context of it all. To him, slow nights meant that he could hide out in a room to himself — because the brothel was under-occupied. Slow nights meant that his mother had the time to check in on him regularly — she had the time to drop in between work to hang out with him or tell him a quick story.

He grimaces — he’s in pain. His back is actually not good. It’s healing, but it’s still not good. He’s in a lot of pain.

 

 

  
There’s a prominent red flush, high on Pod’s cheeks when he is returned to them. Yara has disappeared in some dark corner somewhere with a girl — and Grey’s absence is also this damning and distracting thing. Maybe he’s also with a girl.

Jaime clearly feels bad — as he simultaneously is so amused — that Brienne is sitting alone, tense, in the middle of a brothel. He is so amused watching her say no thank you to all the different prostitutes and their crude gestures, that crossed her path. That is why he beckons Missandei — for them to join Brienne at her table.

“Apparently you’re only here for the food and the good company,” he says, leaning over the table, teasingly.

“God, how many times do you need to be told to shut up?” Brienne gripes. She scans her eyes over at Pod. Her own cheeks flushed in embarrassment — or discomfort — maybe both. And she stiffly asks Pod, “Are you hungry?”

“No, she fed me!” he says cheerfully.

Brienne pushes herself away from the table, swearing under her breath, her chair scraping the floor — as she gets up and mutters that she’s going to go get a drink.

There’s a ghost of a smile on Jaime’s face, as he watches her awkwardly walk off, going off to track down a server. He turns back to Pod, and he says, “So really, what happened?”

Pod kind of blushes. And then he laughs. He says, “We just ate dinner. And she was _naked._ And we talked. That’s all.”

“Oh,” Jaime says, his grin widening. “Do me a favor. Don’t tell Brienne that, okay?”

 

 

  
He’s still a bit groggy and heavy-footed as he winds his way through the crowd. Brienne is always easy to spot — so he makes a beeline for her — raising his brows when he sees her pick up a beer.

She tells him that she doesn’t drink — not really for fun, definitely not when she’s working — and she does consider this work. She tells him — without any prompting — that she’s fun — sort of — when she’s off the clock. She’s not perpetually a pain in the ass and a rule-following stick-in-the-mud.

He kind of ignores her female meltdown because he thinks she’d want him to, in her more even-keeled state — and fuck it — he gestures to the guy tending bar and signals that he wants one, too.

“I think we’re gonna stay in Tolos for a good week,” Brienne says. “Just hang around for a week. We can afford that time.”

He looks at her questioning, sliding money on the bar as he raises the beer to his face. He smells the barley. It’s been years. Years upon years since he’s had a drink. He’s probably a real lightweight now. He takes a sip — before he says, “Why?”

Brienne gives him a withering look — lightly shaking her head. “Man, you are not well — you think we can’t tell that you’re in pain? You need to heal. And we need you at your best. You’re no good to anyone dead.”

 

 

Missandei watches him carefully — as he leans on his elbows — and he actually smiles at something that Brienne says to him, before he lifts his beer to take a sip. And it’s like peering into some alternate universe where all this of this horrible shit didn’t happen to them. He’s just some guy talking to his friend at a bar on a random Saturday.

 

 

  
Brienne tiredly tells them that it’s fine to leave Yara at the brothel — Yara will be fine. Yara will show up tomorrow morning, practically cheerful and energetic.

“Sounds like you’ve been through this before,” Jaime says, sounding serious before his face breaks into a grin. “Always the bridesmaid, never the bride.”

Brienne actually slams her hand out and roughly shoves him a few halted steps backwards. With a regular source of food, even without his right hand — Jaime has been getting stronger and stronger. He withstands her shove — and it’s something that the rest of them note with trepidation — something that Jaime notes with such self-satisfaction. Sometimes, they forget of his potential danger, so distracted they are by his handicap, by his handsome face, by the jokes he cracks.

“Don’t push me,” Jaime says to Brienne, with a distinct lack of humor coloring his voice.

“Don’t test me,” Brienne bites back.

“Wouldn’t dream testing you on something you’d flunk,” he says, voice still flat.

“I’ve known guys like you my whole life. You think you’re so funny. You think you’re so charming, when you put other people down so that you can feel big and bad. You’re fucking assholes. And you pretend it’s innocent and it’s all light-hearted. But fuck you for always messing with me.” Brienne glances at Grey. “You don’t even have the fucking guts to mess with him like you do with me. Because you know he will beat your ass. And I am standing here, telling you, you better be just as afraid of me as you are of him. I will fucking beat your ass.”

Brienne silently turns around and heads back to their car.

 

 

  
Pod is passed out — drunk — who was the fucking genius that gave this kid alcohol? — on the other bed. He’s sick of hanging out with Lannister and Missandei and being the third-wheel to whatever fucking fraught thing they have going on — so he hides out in Brienne and Yara’s room, under the guise of getting help with his back.

He actually does need help with his back. He had a bit of a come-to-Jesus moment with Brienne at the bar. She told him that he is also fucking with her life, when he doesn’t tell her the real extent of his injuries and how he feels. She told him to just stop fucking with her life — and to just trust her with this information about himself.

He’s shirtless at the foot of the bed, and she’s sitting behind him, rubbing some more antibiotic ointment over his itchy and sore scab. He thinks that this is also trust — this is a form of trust. He asks her if his back is inflamed — sometimes it feels too tender and hot to the touch. She tells him it looks pretty okay to her — just a bruised and yellowed nasty mess — but generally pretty okay. She tells him she wishes they had some bit of magic that just made him heal instantly.

He knows that her mind is drifting to Sansa Stark.

And he tells her that it’s good to wait a week — it’s good to regain their strength.

She asks him how come he’s so familiar in and around brothels — and then her hand on his skin immediately halts — she’s embarrassed for asking such a personal question. She’s so easily embarrassed. He twists around on the bed — so that he can face her. They leave his wound open at night, so that it’s not perpetually rewetting itself. And he tells her he was born in one. He grew up in one. His mom was a prostitute for a while. And then she cleaned houses.

She looks only mildly surprised. And then she offers to him — she awkwardly tells him that her mom died when she was still a little kid.

 

 

  
He wakes up again when he hears Pod getting up from the bed and running for the toilet. Brienne also stirs beside him, lightly groaning. He peeps one eye open and he sees that it’s morning.

They ignore Pod, letting him deal with his life lesson — as Brienne mutely pulls out their makeshift first aid kit and rips apart some gauze. She lightly rubs down his back with a hot washcloth that she grabbed after stepping over Pod’s miserable body, hanging over the toilet. Then the gauze lightly goes over his wound before she tapes it down.

He thanks her before he pulls on his wrinkled shirt from the night before.

 

 

  
Jaime sips from his coffee cup and he tells her that he’s gonna spend the day figuring out how much it’s gonna cost to get plane tickets to King’s Landing. She tells him that Brienne will probably give them the money if he would just ask — a fact that makes Jaime rigid with tension.

She’s been trying to dissuade Jaime from going back to that fucking hellhole city. She’s been trying to tell him that there’s nothing left there for him. He keeps skipping over all of the context she doesn’t know about him — but she knows enough to make connections. He keeps telling her that he has to see if Cersei is okay, if his niece and nephews are okay. He has none of the same concerns about his brother. And he has said nothing about his father, the man who sold him. And many, many years ago — a lifetime ago, she had heard the rumors about him and his family.

“Does she love you too?” Missandei says, staring at him steadily.

He flinches, before he says, “She does.”

Missandei shakes her head at that — not in disbelief or judgement — they are so far beyond that at this point. But she just shakes her head at the things that inspire people to do what they will do.

And she watches as Jaime’s eyes drift to the stairwell — as Grey and Brienne lumber down it — their matching heights and non-matching skin color just this oddity. Jaime has called them various shitty names to her behind their backs — Weirdass Ebony and Ivory, Those Two Assholes With No Personality — and Missandei has generally been non-responsive to his general bitterness. She recognizes it for what it is. He’s distancing himself emotionally from them with this sense of purpose. It’s probably something he has done his entire life.

Grey lightly kicks Jaime’s chair, before he reaches out for the one next to Missandei. He says to Jaime, “Got something you wanna share?”

 

 

  
Missandei ends up being the one who asks Brienne for some money. She has no fucking pride or self-respect left anymore. And as predicted — Brienne quickly hands it over — asks if they want more. She vaguely says something about travel expenses. She nervously says that Grey kind of got them more money than they even really need, so it’s no big deal.

Missandei leaves Jaime to his own inner turmoil over his life — over the prospect of taking money from Brienne, over the prospect of seeing his sister again after some years — and over his missing hand — as she walks herself over to the sales window of the travel agency. And it’s become this fucking powerful thing in her life — her ability to carry herself from place to place again, her ability to be autonomous and independent again. She has decided that she will go to King’s Landing with Jaime. He is right. She buys three tickets.

 

 

  
He’s cutting out her stitches when she tells him that she’s leaving, while Jaime is in the shower. Grey doesn’t look at all surprised. She knows that he must have heard her and Jaime talking about this at night. Her eyes are steady on his face — she’s sitting cross-legged on his bed — and she tells him that he can leave too. He can come with her too. He should come with her.

“Don’t,” he says, before turning his attention back to her hand.

She doesn’t know what he means exactly. Don’t what? “You don’t have any allegiances to the Starks,” she says. “This isn’t your fight.”

She already knows that they deeply disagree on this. And she is selfish. She maybe just wants him as a fixture in her life because he is familiar and he once represented safety to her. And given her recent history — she is lacking the distinct feeling of being safe in her own skin. That’s what this is about. This is what she tells herself — as he resolutely shakes his head and tells her no, he’s not leaving Brienne and Yara.

 

 

  
Missandei watches kind of in a detached way, as Pod kind of tears up and throws his arms around Brienne in a big hug. Brienne looks uncomfortable — stiff — as she tepidly pats Pod on the back and tells him that it’s not as dramatic as all of this. They will see each other soon enough at some point.

And maybe even the kid has gained enough wisdom to know when he’s being placated and lied to. Because he just holds on tighter.

Missandei doesn’t want to say goodbye to Grey — again — with an audience — again. But she supposes that this is her lot in life, to have very little privacy in pivotal moments.

“Timing,” she says to him quietly, before she clears her throat — aware that they do not have a lot of time at all — and she says, “I never thought I’d see you again. But here we are.”

He nods, his arms crossed behind his back.

“You will be careful,” she says, more as a statement than a question. “You will do your best to not die?”

He smiles slightly at that — because he remembers — he knows that she’s echoing the jokes she used to crack at him, whenever he used to be assigned to some important detail. “I will be careful. I’m not afraid.”

“You never were afraid,” she says. “I was always afraid enough for the both of us.”

He shakes his head — imperceptibly. His eyes are cast far away — looking at Brienne and Yara — before he shifts back and looks back at her face. He says, “Well, have a good flight —”

She raises herself up a little bit, on her feet, now stronger than they have been in weeks. She surprises him when she touches his cheek with her palm — still a little sore, but closed and healing. His eyes cloud over — and her vision blurs with tears — as she leans up and presses her mouth against his skin — the skin next to the corner of his mouth — before she tells herself _fuck it_ — this is the very last time she’s going to see him.

She transfers her mouth over his. He freezes in surprise as she kisses him — her hand on his face, on his neck. She used to always wonder what it was like to kiss him and to be kissed by him.

And then his hands come up to hold her, lightly and hesitantly at first — touching her back, his fingers resting in the dip of her spine before he firmly pulls her body against his. She thinks about Kraznys at this moment — he comes to her mind completely unbidden and it makes her bitter, that even dead, he’d interrupt this moment. But she thinks that she never had to kiss Kraznys. And here, now, she is kissing another man — she is allowing herself to kiss another man. And — as his mouth and his lips slowly glide against hers — her heart just pounds in her throat, threatening to choke her. And it is so, _so_ unfair. She holds onto him tightly, as she finds the guts to shove her tongue into his mouth. The kiss goes very non-platonic. It goes dirty.

They simultaneously pull away a moment later — panting. She almost laughs at the fucking joke of it all. And she confesses to him, “I’ve always wanted to do that — with you.”

The look that he gives her is thick and heavy. He says, “I’ve always wanted to do that, too — with you.”

 

 

  
After Jaime, Pod, and Missandei disappear behind the gate — as he mutely walks back to Brienne and Yara with his hands shoved in his pockets — he sees Brienne’s grin, and he sees Yara grumble as she slaps some cash into Brienne’s outstretched hand.

“You just made me lose a bet, Sarah,” Yara says, when he’s within earshot. “Thanks a lot, man.”

 

 

 

 


	12. twelve

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Dream Team goes back to the Island of Doctor Moreau. Now that Missandei can walk, she takes care of some bidness. And Jaime is being a lame girl and cannot get over an ex.

 

 

 

He’s a little seasick and nauseous. Brienne and Yara take to being on a small boat like it’s nothing. They kind of wryly smile at each other and tell him that they’re both really used to water. The three of them are claustrophobically trapped together in one tiny room — this is wholly different from the last time he made this journey — and he can’t go on deck and stand against the pitch black and the inky coldness anymore. It’s so late and they need to rest.

Yara’s bare foot is hanging off the bed, lightly swinging with the motion of the boat. She’s lying down, her shorter stature makes her the only one that can really get anywhere near to comfortable on the bed pad. Grey and Brienne are on the ground, smelling of mold, mildew, and the chemical scent of cheap vinyl.

They have all been grimly talking about how they’re all marked for death — and really soon, too. It’s sort of a joke — sort of not at all a joke. All they can do is just chill and mess around with each other, as they count down their time together. None of them are the sort to pray or to try to exorcise old demons. They make shitty jokes because they don’t want to talk about anything substantial. The only thing he has heard that comes vaguely close is Yara wondering out loud if her brother will still know her — or if he’s just so far beyond what she remembers of him.

 

 

  
“They must have landed in King’s Landing by now,” Brienne says softly, her voice floating around in the dark, just echoing in his head. “I bet they’re on the ground again, and they’re safe,” she says. He knows that she’s saying it completely for his benefit.

“Probably,” he says stiffly, rolling over so that he can press his face into the smelly ground.

“Shit, man,” Yara says lightly. “Would you stop emoting your feelings all over us? It’s too much, Beatrice. It really is.” And then her tone shifts — she says, “Maybe Lannister’s dead? Maybe he had some sort of embolism when the cabin depressurized or something.”

Brienne’s laugh is all air. She says, “That guy is . . . frankly a horrible human being. But I don’t actually want him dead. That’s horrible.”

“Well, yeah,” Yara says reluctantly. “But it’s kind of fun to imagine, right?”

 

 

  
Because King’s Landing is the basecamp of the Whites, it’s a city that still embodies some of its former glory. It’s loud, it’s packed, it’s plugged in. When she has to punch buttons on a tablet to exchange their cash for a payment card — she almost wants to cry over it. She hasn’t touched technology in so long. And she feels emotional because it used to be so integrated into her life. She feels emotional because it reminds her of her old life. And like it or not — there are still some vestiges of home here, for her.

When a hand has to be scanned, before a debit card is issued — she feels paranoid. She tells herself that she has to do something about that — her paranoia. She takes Pod’s hand — Pod who is just looking like a country bumpkin, looking around at everything in awe; after all, he has not been here since he was a very young child — and she presses his hand onto the console. The screen beeps and then spits out a plastic card in a tray.

Missandei held back some cash. She’s still in Yara’s clothes. Jaime’s still in Grey’s clothes. Pod’s in his own clothes. These clothes are from a whole other continent. And they stick out.

It turns out Missandei’s more equipped to navigate through King’s Landing than Jaime is. He used to live here, too — but high above everyone else. He used to live in the upper echelons. He has no fucking clue how to even get food — because his food used to just appear in his kitchen by way of household staff. He has no idea how most people actually live here. She has already joked around with him, telling him that she now understands why he was so keen on having her tag along on his grand romantic overture. It’s so she can play tour guide.

She takes point.

She takes them to Little Vaes Dothrak, where people speak the common tongue only out of necessity, where few questions are asked and their business will be largely ignored.

She eyes the motel manager’s daughter — a young teenage girl with headphones on, bopping to music as she does her homework — as Missandei pays for a room. In Dothraki, Missandei asks him if he will sell his daughter’s outfit to her.

 

 

  
He erases the line on the sheet of paper and redraws it for the fifth time sitting at small table on the deck of the boat, brushing off the eraser bits with the side of his hand. This is something he’s been working on, off and on, over the past day. He’s been trying to dig into the recesses of his memory. He went into a restless sleep trying to remember and recall — before giving his mind a rest and relaxing. They used to call it the four Rs.

“Amazing,” Brienne says simply, leaning over to examine at his drawing — it’s a map of the Bolton complex — a cup of hot water in her big hands. She blows on the steam. “How much of that is your training and how much of it is natural ability?”

He kind of hums as he thinks about it — it’s not something he’s actually ever examined. It’s just always something he has done. He tells Brienne this. He tells Brienne that a lot of it is his military training — he’s constantly organizing information, making associations, creating pictures, reducing interference, over-learning, reviewing obsessively in his head — and paying attention to his own patterns — noting when he forgets things and documenting to himself. He tells her he uses several methods in tandem, kind of fluidly. It’s kind of second nature now.

“But to answer your question, I guess it’s natural ability in the sense that my mom was my very first teacher in this,” he says. “I was a really quiet child because I had to be. I was always observing things and people. I was kind of always looking out for her — trying to figure out fast which man in her life was dangerous, who was a threat to us, who was just sad and harmless, who was just an asshole but harmless.” He shrugs.

A faraway grin kind of slinks onto her face. She says, “When I was a little girl, I was just running around in the fields and play-fighting with myself. Sometimes with my dad. Because we lived too far from people that I didn’t have anyone to play with. That was the extent of my early education in this. Your education was far more structured and intense.”

He slowly grins back at her. “It’s why I’m so easygoing and fun-loving.”

 

 

  
When she exits the bathroom in a pair of dark skinny denim jeans, an abstract white t-shirt of a band she has never heard of before, and a cheap leather-look jacket — Jaime’s eyes flick up and down her body — and she’s getting flashbacks to when they first met. She’s lost a significant amount of weight and to her own eyes, she looks broken and weak. But after a long pause, Jaime finally says, “You look good.”

She chuckles lowly.

When she tells Jaime and Pod to stay put because they are too conspicuous in Little Vaes Dothrak — she’s planning on getting the lay of the land, run some errands, get them some threads so they don’t look so fucking foreign, maybe dinner, too — Jaima is wholly against her going out alone. He tells her that she’s not even halfway healed yet. He actually gets upset right away, which makes Pod nervous, and he asks her, “Why do you have some fucking death wish?”

And she completely intends to hurt his feelings and to really make him angry with her — so that it’ll be easy for him to let go. She says, “I don’t understand why you think you’d be an asset, rather than a liability to me — with your one hand.”

“You’ve seen what I can do with one hand,” he says darkly.

“Not against an able-bodied man, I haven’t.”

“Screw you, Missy,” he spits. “I know what you’re trying to do.”

“Stay here!” she snaps. “I get that you want to protect me — but that is _not_ your job! I didn’t ask for your help. I don’t want it right now.”

 

 

  
They paid a lot of money to be able to take their guns onto the boat. They paid a lot of money for the crew to look the other way. And he looks ahead with this grim awareness — he hasn’t fired a gun in nearly seven years — not even for practice — he realizes he’s painfully out of practice and out of shape for this kind of work. It has been evidenced in the way he has continually fucked up since the moment Brienne and Yara came and got him. He has almost gotten people killed — multiple times.

This sort of self-loathing is an obstacle though. He clips his gun into a holster and pulls the tail of his t-shirt out of jeans, stretching the shirt over the gun so it’s loose on his body.

The pebbles and gravel crunches underneath his feet, when he steps onto the dirt ground. The crew had double-checked with them, multiple times, to see if the coordinates are correct. They say it’s a dead island — lifeless and abandoned. No one has come or gone in a long while. Grey had assured the crew that the location is right — he’s sure of it. He remembers. He poured over the itinerary, the personnel, and all of the documentation, the air photos, the maps, local weather patterns, local vegetation — he landed five days on the mainland before Dany and Missandei, to prep. He talked to local guides, farmers, the police, and local military.

It was this obsessive attention to detail that got him hired in the first place — he was really young and relatively under-experienced, compared to the other men vying for his job. Also — Dany respected youth. Perhaps for obvious reasons. At the time, she told him that she saw something in him, keeping it vague and mostly nonexplicit.

The jungle is thick and overgrown, looking wholly unlike they remember it. There is no path, no entrance. They have all learned a hard lesson in the recent years — nature will take over quickly, easily obliterating traces of human civilization. Humankind is so prone to thinking that they will be remembered and their legacies will last forever, so unaware of how fleeting and how insubstantial their influence.

“Shit,” Yara says, walking up from behind him, looking into the dense jungle.

“Do you remember the way?” Brienne asks softly, gently, from beside him. He had been right. Brienne had been a cop, in another life. Her areas of expertise does not include tracking in this kind of terrain.

He visually looks fifteen to twenty yards ahead, seeking out evidence of bent grass blades, faint darkened areas, broken spider webs. He remembers when he was able to give what he had been doing his entire life a name — spooring. They first trained in large groups — short groups in easy terrain. They iteratively stretched their attention span from minutes to hours. It was the first time in his life that he actually thought he was tailor-made for a purpose.

“Hello? Earth to Susan? Jesus Christ, he’s broken.”

He ignores her, his eyes flickering from sign to sign, confirming one before moving onto the next. He looks up at the sun, tells himself what time of day it is. And then he says, “It’s this way.”

 

 

  
She keeps her face up and steady — she looks everyone she passes in the eyes. That’s something counterintuitive that he taught her — years and years ago. The assumption she used to carry, when she was a young girl, is that if she makes herself small, she would be ignored and left alone. He taught her that the opposite is actually true. He told her that the last thing predators actually want is a sparring partner. They don’t want to work that hard to subdue their target. Therefore, they pick out people who are weak — and that is betrayed by body language. He taught her to take up physical space, to occupy air. He taught her that if she feels uneasy and feels someone following her, she’s supposed to flip around and walk toward her stalker — and she’s supposed to look him in the face. For two reasons — to show her general confidence. And to let him know that she can identify his face to the authorities if she needs to.

She wonders if those old rules still apply to this new world. She wonders what authorities they fear now. The law enforcement is no longer the same.

She discreetly passes cash to the man at the front desk. In Dothraki, she tells him she’d like to rent an hour — she wants to ghost an hour — no tracks, no evidence that she was ever here. He looks nonplussed, as he flicks the bills underneath his thumbnail, as he tells gestures to a terminal on the far end of the room. He tells her that her hour starts when she boots up.

It really won’t take the entire hour, but she bought it anyway, for insurance.

She pulls all of her old accounts. Nearly all of her assets were drained when she was turned over to be sold. Through backchannels, she confirms that all of those accounts have zeroed out. But there is one account that she set up under an alias — an account she was saving for a rainy day, for a disaster. Really, she anticipated that the disaster would be related to her family — maybe one of her brothers would get into trouble and would need the money one day — but they never called upon her and she hasn’t spoken to them in years.

The offshore account is still alive and kicking — holding only a modest emergency fund. But it’s something.

It hasn’t been long enough for them to change everything — it’s unlikely. And her fingers rapidly click over the keys, lightly tapping impatiently as she fights to remember the protocols.

And then it is done. Almost instantaneously. What’s left of her meager life savings is transferred to Pod’s debit account.

 

 

  
Yara is more or less a civilian. She may be talented, but he finds her constant need to talk to be intensely distracting, unnecessary, and dangerous. So he bluntly tells her to shut up so he can concentrate. And it creates a bit of tension. She’s quiet, but the resentment and anger that radiates off of her is intense.

 

 

  
She’s stopped at the door when she tries to leave. At first, she assumes that he knows she has access to a very, very tiny non-fortune. But then she looks up into his face and she realizes that it’s something else. Maybe it’s because she’s a novelty because she’s not Dothraki and she doesn’t look Dothraki. Maybe it’s because she’s wearing a teenager’s clothes, and the clothes are one-size too tight on her already skinny body.

She looks around the internet cafe and she sees everyone minding their own business with this monomania. Because of course they fucking are.

She firmly pulls her arm out of his grasp and she tries to push past him again. He’s huge — tall. His voice is deep but syrupy, as he asks her where she’s going, in Dothraki. He grabs onto her arm again.

She tries to pull her arm out of his hand again — and she can’t. His vice-grip on her is tight. She firmly tells him to let her go.

And then he says something crass — with slang she’s not familiar with. But he says something about how he wants her to eat his dick.

And . . . anger just hits her — right in between her eyes. Anger and hot tears. And nobody in the joint will even dare to even give a shit — because it’s not worth it for them to raise trouble — and it’s all the same, anywhere. Everywhere, she’s alone and she has to watch out for herself always.

She rips her arm out of his grasp. And she shouts — startling everyone in the cafe. She loudly tells him to leave her the fuck alone or else she will fucking kill him.

He laughs at her — as if she is so amusing to him. But he does step aside to let her pass, his reverberating chuckles deep and malicious.

 

 

  
When she gets back to the motel, she empties the contents of her plastic bag onto the bed. She tells them she had to guess their sizes. She tells Jaime she got him long sleeves. He acknowledges her statement with a grunt, as he immediately starts to pull off his shirt with one hand, standing there at the foot of the bed. The scar tissue on his back — on his stump — wink underneath the dim overhead lights. He struggles a little bit, and she makes no move to help him. She just leaves her arms crossed and despondently watches from the doorway of the washroom. They don’t have a tub or shower — just a sink and a toilet.

“Thanks so much, Missandei,” Pod says quietly, holding up a Western-style shirt to examine it.

“No prob, sweetie,” she says. And then she pulls out a pack of disposable razors out of her pocket. She rips apart plastic and she tosses one to Pod and one to Jaime. Pod only has a few sparse wispy hairs on his face — but she figures it’s nice for him to feel included.

Jaime reaches up to run his hand over his beard. “You think I should shave? Before I see her?”

She shrugs. “Do what you want. I’m just giving you options.” She also pulls out a folded piece of paper out of the breast pocket of her jacket. She flips the paper open. “I found her address.” She had done a search for it, while she was at the cafe. And it wasn’t easy. She had to mine county records, compare whatever’s on file with the very bare current information. Information has apparently been shut down and locked down tight — censored — since the White takeover.

“When can we leave?”

She gives him a look. “You really can’t wait? You can’t even wait until tomorrow?”

“I _have_ been waiting,” Jaime says tightly. “I’ve been waiting a _long time.”_

 

 

  
There’s no fucking reasoning with Jaime. He is a fucking man possessed. Like a fucking idiot. Like so many other men she has known.

She tells him that he should wait until morning to actually go hunt down his sister, and he doesn’t even have a reason for her, for why it’s important for him to see her as soon as possible. His face is just tortured and his body is slouched over — and he tells her he has this premonition that something bad has happened. He tells her that he can just tell. Cersei’s his twin, his other half. He just knows. He can just _feel it_ — just like she can feel him. He tells Missandei that there’s just no time left to spare. He’s going to regret this forever, if something happens to her and he didn’t do everything he could to get to her.

“I can go by myself,” he says quietly.

“Don’t be stupid,” she says. “You can’t go by yourself. You actually don’t _know_ how to get anywhere undetected in King’s Landing. She lives clear on the other side of the city.” She looks to Pod, who is sitting quietly on the bed, avoiding eye contact as they fight in front of him, his hands carefully picking apart a fruit bar, tearing it up into small chunks as he methodically eats it.

“I’m going, with or without you,” he says, glaring at her. “I already waited this long. I waited for you to get back. Because I didn’t want to disappear on you. I didn’t want to do that to you, in case I don’t come back. But I’m _not_ asking your permission. I’m not even asking for your help. I’m saying goodbye. For now.”

She starts tearing up. She hates it. She raises her fist to her eyes and she smears her tears away. “You brought me all the way here to _leave me?_ What the fuck? You asshole.”

“I _love her,”_ Jaime says, voice dark and insistent. “I’m sorry. But I’m _weak.”_

“I have _left_ someone I _love_ behind, too.” And now, she is really crying. “You can fucking wait _a day._ You can wait a fucking day! You owe me this, Jaime. Wait until morning. I will go with you. You will _die here,_ without me. What good are you to her? When you are dead?”

 

 

  
The journey through the jungle is taking a lot longer than the first time they did it. It’s taking hours. Because it’s thick and there is no path and everything is covered and overgrown.

He inhales sharply, his steps slowing a little bit. And then he whispers, “We’re being followed.” And then he picks up the pace again — he starts walking faster than they previously were.

Brienne tenses, but she wisely says nothing. She just quickens her pace, too.

“Should we split up?” Yara asks.

He shakes his head no — firmly. He gestures for her to not talk. She’s not well-versed in standard hand signals. But she does understand that it’s really important to be quiet.

It doesn’t quite make sense to him at first. There’s no great intelligence in the way they are being followed and tracked. It’s not calculated and methodical. It’s instinctive — like it’s scent-based or it’s thermal. They are being tracked by an animal?

And then it snaps into place.

To Yara and Brienne, he whispers, “Robert Strong.”

 

 

 

 


	13. thirteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In this chap, we learn that teamwork makes the dream work. Also, Jaime is still a huge girl. Poor Missandei.

 

 

 

  
He’s trying outrun Robert Strong, pushing forward as fast as he can with Brienne and Yara — without instilling panic into them, without making too many mistakes. He thinks that they’re being tracked by scent, but he can’t be sure. And without knowing anything about the biology of Strong, he can’t waste time trying to obscure their smell. It’s just going to have to be a fast, straight shot to the top.

He remembers that Strong was a prototype — must have been — one of the very first successful experiments of Qyburn’s work. Strong was made in the mold of what they’d come to know as the Blues — strategic thinkers, fighters, enforcers, protectors. He remembers Strong being huge. He doesn’t remember Strong being capable of speech. That is — unfortunately — all that Grey knows.

He does know with certainty that Strong is big, really big.

He grabs Yara’s wrist. Her eyes flash to his, attentive and alert. He points up. They are going to take a bit of a shortcut, they are going to climb up the massive and steep hillside instead of fighting through the overgrown switchback trails. He recalls the aerial photos. It’s going to take about forty minutes, he thinks, based on what he can estimate with the information he has on Yara and Brienne.

“Forty minutes,” Yara repeats in a whisper, looking up. “If that’s what we gotta do, that’s what we gotta do,” she says.

He tells them he will go first, and they are to follow and copy what and where he grabs — and if possible, they are to use the same footholds he makes. He says they need to keep their eyes squinted, because dirt will rain down on their faces. Do their best to keep watching him.

 

 

  
As Pod flips through TV channels — a sheer novelty that is like an electric zap to his brain — Missandei quietly sits at the head of the bed and scrolls through the burner phone that she bought — as a means of distraction. She’s pretending it’s preparation though.

She mostly just doesn’t want to argue with Jaime anymore.

One thing that she has refrained from telling him is that in Naath, an extended family will live in very close quarters. They’re a very communal sort of people. And she remembers one of the early and very bizarre lessons that her parents passed onto her, when they were all still at their home in Naath. She was only eight years old. She was playing around with her big brother, Mossador. He was eleven. They were taking turns chasing each other around the house, playing a tickle game. The winner, the one who catches the loser, gets to tickle the loser for a full five minutes, in which time, the loser might cry or even pee her pants.

Their dad found Mossador sitting on top of her, digging his fingers into her stomach as she slapped at his hands and yelled at him to stop. And, at the time, for reasons that were completely unknown and bewildering to her, her dad walked up and ripped Mossador off of her. He just started to yell at them in a rage. They tried to explain to him they were just playing, and Mossador wasn’t actually hurting her. But, perhaps because Mossador was a boy and was older, he was taken into another room and disciplined. She was made to kneel and stare at the wall for hours, without dinner.

And later — their mother and father must have exchanged information — because her mom came and released her. And then her mother talked to her and told her that the game they were playing wasn’t right. And her mother told her that she is never to play with Mossador like that again. And she is never supposed to sit too close to him. She is never to touch him or hold his hand or to let him carry her. And this extends to all of her male brothers and all of her male cousins.

At eight years old, she didn’t comprehend the greater context of it all. She just tried her best not to cry in front of her mother over the loss. She just felt this aggressive confusion and this pervading sense of shame — at having done something so gravely wrong. And she was also so sad because most of her female cousins were older than her by four years — none of them wanted to play with her. She had no sisters. At the time, she just felt like her mother was dooming her to a life of being alone and friendless.

And afterward, Mossador walked stiffly for day. And afterward, he stopped playing with her. He stopped looking at her directly in the face when he spoke to her — which was only when necessary. It was never the same again.

And later, when she was older — when her cousins, who are siblings, caused a small, secretive scandal in the family by being caught in bed together — well, she still thinks her parents were wrong and distrustful — but she understands. Others have pontificated around her — talking about the nature of living in such close quarters, how common the side effects of such things are in their culture. She has known people who had to move far away as adults, so they can be together.

She looks at Jaime, lying down in the other bed with Pod, pretending to sleep.

 

 

  
Yara is last to climb over. He grabs her arms and gently lifts her the rest of the way up. He’s holding onto her elbows, helping her stand up. The light is dwindling — slowly, but surely. It’ll be dark over the next hour. He remembers snippets of idle conversation, from the hours and hours they spent driving together in the car. He remembers Pod’s natural curiosity about all of them — Pod’s inquiries. From that, he was reminded that Yara’s dad has a room dedicated to her apparent trophies — for placing in marksmanship matches. He had actually known this information at one point — when he studied up on all of them prior to the last time they were all on this island.

He gestures to her holster. He says, “We have twenty minutes, tops.” He sees comprehension dawn in her eyes — he sees her apprehension, even as she pulls out her Heckler & Koch USP Elite, with its long slide. She raises the gun experimentally — and then she lowers it after a few sightings, whispering, “Fuck.” Her arms are shaking — she doesn’t need to tell him that. They are shaky from the climb.

“What’s your range?”

“I don’t know,” she breathes, shaking her head. “Fuck. I’d guess twenty-five yards, max.” She sighs. “I haven’t fired a gun in ages.” None of them have. Bullets cost a premium. And firing a gun in any urban area is guaranteed to incite violence.

In close combat, the truth is that humans are terrified and killing another human is deeply traumatic. The aversion to killing one’s own species is innate and it’s anchored deep in the flesh — animals will circle aggressively around their own kind, delaying battle, whereas in similar circumstances with another species, animals will lunge and show their claws and teeth without even a tingle from the forebrain. It’s this instinct that preserve one’s own species and ensures its survival even in the face of the most violent of territorial displays.

People are no different. In moments of great stress and fear, the thinking brain gets shut down and humans operate purely on the midbrain, the primitive, basic brain.

He asks Yara if she’s ever fired at a person before. She flinches and she tells him no. Never. He asks her if she’s ever fired at humanoid targets before — or if it’s just been bullseyes. She almost looks like she takes offense to the question, and she stiffly tells him she’s only fired at bullseyes.

It’s about what he expects. So he has her engage with him. He pulls Brienne over, closer. He makes Yara touch their hands. He tells her that they are in this together — they are a team — they have been from the beginning — everything they have done and everything they will do is as a team. They will own it all together. He tells her that their lives really do depend on her. He tells her that Strong is not a person — he’s not a human. He’s a great facsimile of a human — but the person Strong used to be has already died. And in that place is an animal that intends to do them great harm. He reminds her of her brother. He tells her they are here for a purpose — and it’s one that’s greater than all of them. It’s so beyond all of them.

“Practice it in your head,” he says. “Visualize yourself doing it, over and over again, okay?”

Yara looks lost — slow-moving. But at least she is calm.

“You’ve got this, Ya-ya,” Brienne says.

“Yeah,” Yara says quietly, sighing.

 

 

  
He’s only about forty percent sure Yara will be able to pull the trigger. And if she pulls the trigger, he’s still only fifty percent sure she’ll hit her target. She’s entirely untrained for this. She’s never put down a Brown or a Purple, let alone a Blue. It’s a fact that Brienne realizes also, and that is why they both silently decided it’s best for Yara to be the farthest away.

They are up high, which gives them an edge on vantage. The old trail opens ahead of them. Surrounding them are thick brushes and sentinel tree trunks, impossible to silently navigate through — he’d see the sway of the leaves, the uppermost branches. And they came from down below, so they could see Strong climb. There is only one area in which he can get to them — the trail. And it just depends on how long either side will wait.

The thing is, he’s not planning to wait. He looks across the clearing — at Brienne’s blue eyes, shining like a beacon against her pale face in the dusk. They won’t survive the dark. They don’t know the area. Visibility is limited.

She nods her head, tilting it toward the mouth of the trail, her gun in her hands. He racks his own, cycling a bullet into the chamber.

 

 

  
They stay close to one another, Brienne at his back, the ground bumpy, but firm beneath his feet. A light breeze drifts through the space — he almost shivers as a broad leaf brushes against his cheek. The forest is hollowed. And he can feel eyes on him. He can almost hear breath.

 

 

  
Grey raises his gun, takes in a deep breath, aligns the front sight to a shadow, exhales just a fraction of the air in his lungs, and then pulls the trigger straight back.

It’s explosive — a crack that rings in his ears — the recoil snaps at the bones in his wrists — and a dark, blurry mass breaks out of the woods — branches shudder and bend — some break — he shoves Brienne out of the trajectory as his face gets whipped to the side — as his neck cracks — so effortlessly and painlessly that he’s sure he must already be dead. He hits the ground with a thump — his lungs spasming from the impact. He squeezes his right hand, trying to tighten around the metal handle, only to blearily realize that his gun is gone. It got knocked out of his hand.

He tries to roll over and scramble to his feet — he slams back down on his knees, teeth rattling and the salt of blood spilling on his tongue. He can hear the sound of his own voice. And he feels himself getting dragged backwards — and he realizes — he’s entirely too slow. And he’s entirely too weak. He’s entirely outmatched.

His ears are still ringing — but he can still hear the crack of another gun firing — repetitively. Brienne. And then he claws his way out from the thick grasp. And then it’s quiet — it takes him too long to register that it’s quiet.

Her face is a mess — he only catches a glimpse of it — angry and red and wet. She yanks at his shirt, says, “Go go go go,” pulling him to his feet. They’re running — his legs feel like jelly and it's as if he’s fighting through water — but the edge is not far and it’s positively bright — though it is still nighttime — as they break out of the forest. And he belatedly wonders how Yara can actually see any of them, any of this. The movement is just too fast and erratic.

He lets Brienne keep running — and he flips around — colliding into the hard, bone-heavy body of Robert Strong — massive and thick. He would’ve bounced right off the man, but heat and blood are pooling in his feet — like lead — in his head — with pressure. He can’t gasp, he can’t spit, he can’t breathe, as Strong’s steady hand slowly squeezes more blood out of his mouth.

Strong’s eyes are jaundiced. And they are so emotionless and dark that they appear black.

His vision is going. He’s about to pass out.

Another shot cracks through the air. And he thinks that he imagined it because he’s dying. But the grip on his throat loosens. And he falls to the ground as Strong’s hands go up to his own throat — to try and stave off the bleeding.

 

 

  
Grey weakly crawls away before he pushes himself up into sitting position, as Strong falls to his knees, gagging and gurgling as blood pours out from between his fingers at his neck.

Grey’s own throat is nearly swollen shut — he’s holding his own throat as he pulls in air through his nose, to keep from passing out. He tries to stay alert — as Brienne warily circles Strong.

Her voice is loud and steady. “What is your name?” There is a pause. “Where are you from?” Another pause. “Who do you work for?” And then, “Are Sansa Stark and Theon Greyjoy still alive?”

Time seems to move at a snail’s pace — and he watches — as Brienne gets an answer — perhaps not an ideal answer. Strong cannot talk, cannot communicate, does not even beg to live. She lifts her gun — aims it point blank at Strong’s head — and then fires.

The body hits the ground with a flat thump.

 

 

  
Brienne pulls his knife from his pocket and flicks it open. She grimly reminds him that they should sever the head from the body, to be safe. To fully put down a Walker, the brain has to be disconnected from the spine. Yara’s hands are cool and clammy on his face, as she turns it so she can look at him. Her eyes are drooping down, and she’s frowning.

“Fuck, are you okay?”

All he can do is hold onto his throat and nod, pulling in long inhales and pushing out long exhales.

“Thanks for that,” she says, voice thick with emotion. She’s referring to how he got himself nearly choked to death, to buy her time, to buy her some ease. “God, you make me feel terrible.”

He wants to tell her that he makes himself feel terrible, too. He commiserates. They agree on this. But he doesn’t actually have the ability to tell her this.

Brienne drags Strong’s detached head about six feet away the body before she picks it up by the hair. And then with a grunt of effort, she throws it into the dark — down the hill. She wipes his knife on some grass — and then smooths it over her pants on both sides, before she snaps it shut and sneaks it back into his front pocket.

 

 

  
When he wakes up, the sky is still purple, but with a glowing red at the edges. His throat is sore and dry and scratchy. He sees Brienne immediately straighten, from her uncomfortable position with her back against a tree trunk. Yara is lying down on the ground, curled up nearby, her face resting in the fleshy inside of her elbow.

Brienne’s skin is sallow — tinged with a little bit of dull blue, a little bit of gray. She must not have slept at all.

Robert Strong’s corpse is lying a mere twelve feet away. “The first thing we have to do once there’s more light is find your gun,” she says tiredly.

 

 

  
They tell Pod to stay in the motel room and to not open the door for anyone. They leave him with food and the TV to continue entertaining himself with. She promises him that she will be back for him — Jaime makes no such declarations. And Pod is quiet and measured, as he waves bye to Jaime from his position on the bed. Missandei supposes that Brienne’s general wariness of Jaime has influenced Pod greatly.

Getting to the subway is a mundane affair. It’s almost as if nothing has changed at all — the mechanics are still the same. The ticketing machine is still the same. The turnstiles are still the same. The passengers are still the same. There is an eeriness in it all — as she wonders if all of these people still have jobs — if they all still go to work. Of course they still have jobs. But to what end? And how has she become so far removed from this world? She used to ride the train into work, too. It used to be sweltering in the summer. And she used to sway on her feet — in her heels — as the train slowed and sped in between stops. She used to stare at her phone her entire commute, mentally preparing for her day. She used to plan dinners with friends as they texted back and forth, trying to sync up their weekend schedules. She used to get teased by them all the time, for being too gutless to ask a coworker out.

When the train stops, when the doors open, a gush of bodies enter in. Jaime automatically moves back, pressing shoulder-to-elbow with her tightly. Missandei see the woman in front of them clutch onto her grocery bag tighter, lifting it higher on her shoulder — her sweater revealing skin, revealing an old surgical scar running against her spine.

That woman is an Orange, maybe a sub-Red.

 

 

  
Yara shakes her head slowly — like she cannot believe her life — as she quickly re-checks her magazine before sliding it and clicking it back into her gun. She has been fairly quiet — and also very considerate and very polite to him. She keeps calling him by his name. And if not by his name, she calls him, “buddy,” or even, “little buddy.”

What he wouldn’t give for some ice cubes, some cheap vanilla ice cream.

“I don’t know about you guys,” Yara says, “but I’m ready to rape that psychotic fuck’s fat face with some metal.”

The mansion was outfitted with solar panels on the roof — that comes to the forefront of the repository of minute facts in his brain — when he spots a security camera tucked under some flashing.

Yara sighs. “Like, what if they made Robert Strong version 2.0 in that fucking basement and just unleashed the first release out into the woods because they were like, oh, this fucking piece of broken junk, whatever? What if we are walking to our death? Again?”

“Yeah, I don’t know,” Brienne says dully. “Let’s cross the bridge if we come to it.”

He freezes when he hears the motorized whir in the door, as the deadbolt unclicks. There’s a light chime — in a melodic sing song — as the door opens itself just a crack.

 

 

  
Jaime’s father sold Jaime in order to save himself and to keep the rest of the family intact. This is the reason that Jaime gives her — for why he thinks they will not be arrested on site. His father only committed this egregious act on his eldest son because his father was cornered.

She doesn’t buy it. She’s sure Jaime doesn’t buy it either. But at the moment, Jaime will say anything to just get what he wants. And it’s a side of him that she has known, that she has witnessed — but not since they became friends.

She pulls her jacket tighter around her body, as she nervously looks out through the front glass doors of the lobby. It’s been too easy. It’s been entirely too easy to get here. It’s been mostly unfettered access. Jaime keeps talking about his sister as a maiden stuck in a tower — held hostage in a cage as a warning and as a symbol and as an example of their obsolete way of life. But it’s not completely right. Something is not right here.

Jaime tells the security detail that he cannot scan his right hand. Because he has no right hand. He asks if there is another way to verify his identity — retina scan perhaps? Instead, they prick a finger on his left hand and take a drop of his blood. A small machine sucks it up, crunching data.

She crosses her arms and takes a step backward, when she’s asked to scan her hand. She refuses to. She refuses to put herself back into the system.

“She wasn’t born here,” Jaime says casually.

“Then she can be registered,” a lithe woman in a gray pantsuit says, voice calm, feminine, and robotic. Maybe a Red. “It won’t take long.”

“No,” Missandei says resolutely.

“She’s religious,” Jaime says. “Her culture doesn’t allow for this.”

“Sir,” the woman in the gray suit says, exasperation slipping into her tone. “She has to be registered.”

The elevator dings — right before the doors smoothly swoosh open, revealing a beautiful young teenage girl with blond hair, delicate features, and Jaime’s eyes. Her eyes scan the lobby erratically as she steps out of the elevator — settling right away on Jaime. Some piano music filters through unseen speakers overhead.

“Myrcella,” Jaime says.

“Jaime?” she says, her tone lilting up in a sort of question. “Jaime. Oh my God.”

He kind of stumbles, nervously — as he takes a step forward — as the girl simultaneously starts to run the short distance to him. Missandei almost can’t watch as Jaime gets to reunite with his family — she almost turns away, not so much to give them privacy, but to just protect herself from the pain.

She sees Jaime instinctively reaching out with his right hand — before he realizes what he’s doing. He’s so out of sorts — he drops the hand stiffly before he raises the left, before he touches Myrcella’s bare shoulder. He kind of laughs — in disbelief and in elation. He awkwardly stutters. He says, “Wow. Y-you’ve grown. You’re so tall now.”  
  
Missandei sees Myrcella’s emotion — the delicate shake of her body — as she grasps onto Jaime. And then she sees Myrcella kiss Jaime, full on the mouth. Not a kiss that a niece gives her uncle. Not a kiss that a daughter gives her father.

Jaime shoves her back, the back of his hand flying over his lips. His eyes are wide and horrified. He says, “What the fuck?”

She grasps his shirt sleeves. She holds onto him tightly. She says, “You’ve come back to me. My love.”

 

 

  
A child’s voice rings out. “Hello.” It echoes in the cavernous entryway. “It’s good to see you three again.”

His hand tightens on his gun. They all simultaneously look up. At the top of the stairs, they see Sansa Stark, Theon Greyjoy, and a boy — far younger than Pod. Dark hair. Seven years old, maybe.

“We heard gunshots last night,” the child says. Then he pauses. “Tell me, is Robert Strong dead?”

 

 

 

 


	14. fourteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brienne, Grey, and Yara are still stuck in the house of lunacy. Missandei is a begrudging tag-along on Jaime's crusade to get back to his lady love. Someone gets kissed!

 

 

 

  
“Theon!” Yara calls out, her voice raw and strained, her hand raised up. She is met with silence and a blank look — the corners of her mouth fall into a downturn as she blinks rapidly. “Theon,” she repeats, taking a careless step forward, toward the stairs.

Grey’s hand shoots out, burying itself in the back of her shirt, gripping onto the fabric tightly as he holds her in place, as she struggles against him. She twists her body and roughly grunts as she rips herself out of his grasp, tossing him a mutinous look. He says, “Steady.” It’s a warning. He’s trying to remind her not to lose her fucking head and get herself killed, not after all of the work she has done to get to this point.

She tells him, “That’s my _brother,”_ as if he doesn’t already know.

The tips of Grey’s fingers automatically go to his gun, as Yara willfully rushes past the child and runs up the staircase. He and Brienne, rigid and tense beside him, follow Yara with just their eyes. His heart beats in time with her thick footsteps. He sees her reach out to touch her brother’s shoulders. He hears her tell Theon that he’s safe now — she has come to take him home. Grey sees that Theon gives her no indication that he recognizes her — he just looks bewildered and scared. Grey hears Yara say Theon’s name again and again — each iteration louder and more panicked. And then he sees her shake Theon roughly, as he cowers and groans and tries to pry her hands off of his body.

“You should tell her that isn’t Theon,” the child says simply, his words punctuated by a faint rhythmic thumping from elsewhere in the house, dimples dug into his cheeks as he grins. There is something off-putting about this child. “That is Reek.”

 

 

Missandei finds her body turning around of its own volition — it’s automatic for her to give people privacy in their personal moments — even as she can do nothing to make herself deaf to the conversation going on behind her back. She stares through the bright windows, into the outside world as a lengthy and tense silence spreads out thick behind her.

And then, Myrcella says, “You really don’t recognize me?”

“You’re my _niece.”_

“I’m not,” she says.

Another long pause ticks by. The security detail around them is also pointedly working to appear unhearing.

Finally, Myrcella says, “It’s me, brother.”

 

 

  
Yara is sniffing back her tears — pointlessly because her face is wet from crying and from a runny nose that she keeps wiping at with her wrist — before she cocks her gun and says, “Where are the Boltons?” Her voice is plain, strong, and matter-of-fact — in spite of her tears. “I’m going to kill those motherfuckers.” She can’t even look at Theon. There is something very wrong with him. He is not himself. And he has identified her as a source of stress, so he starts verbalizing — these wordless shouts and whimpers — whenever he catches her attention on him.

Brienne sighs, as she reaches out to touch Yara’s elbow, just to let Yara know she’s there — before Brienne swiftly, but gently, extricates Yara’s gun from her tight grasp.

The child clicks his tongue before his face morphs into a cold smile — one laden with context and knowledge. He says, “You’re too late.”

 

 

  
Missandei automatically starts trailing behind them when they head to the elevators, stuck in her own anxiety and her own thoughts when a heavy hand grabs her arm, halting her. She looks up questioningly at the security guy — she’s never once seen Grey put his hands on anyone in this way before — and upon getting just a lot of stone-faced blankness, Missandei calls out Jaime’s name, to get his attention.

He frowns slightly, when he turns around to see. “It’s okay,” he says to the room. He’s still struck dumb — in a daze. “She’s with me.”

The girl next to him — she can’t call her Myrcella anymore because it’s not Myrcella — straightens her body and raises her chin. She’s wondering who exactly Missandei is to Jaime. And this is actually a posture she’s seen Dany adopt before, and it’s one that sets on Missandei on edge. She knows she’s about to be referred to, but not directly spoken to.

The girl says, “Is it really necessary to involve strangers in our family business, Jaime?” And then after a short pause — as Jaime says nothing — the girl says, _“Who_ is _this,_ anyway?” her tone prissy and uptight. It is so fucking bizarre and weird to witness. Jaime is stiff with discomfort. The girl looks so young. Her clear innocent face stands in stark contrast to the bitterness in her words.

Missandei huffs out a breath, pretending to be impatient so she doesn’t have to deal with her own nerves. The waiting elevator is lined with mirrors. Missandei can see that she — devoid of pale skin and light hair — is the one that doesn’t belong here. She mutters, “I’m his bodyguard,” tilting her chin toward his crossed arms.

It must’ve been the first time that the girl has seen his stump — a lot of people overlook it because they are so focused on Jaime’s face and the way he generally takes up space — and a look of shock gradually and quickly spreads over her face, with wide eyes and her mouth ajar. “Jaime!” she says in gasp. “What happened to you?”

 

 

  
As they reluctantly follow the kid — who is coy whenever they ask him who he is — he can hear Brienne speaking quietly to Sansa under her breath, quickly telling Sansa that they are here because Sansa’s mother sent them. She wants for them to take Sansa home. Sansa looks rattled — and suspicious — like she can’t allow herself to hope or to trust them. Sansa says nothing in response, but the tight line of her mouth conveys that she has heard Brienne — she is thinking.

The child says, “We’re so grateful that you are here. It’s been years since we’ve seen anyone else. This is the most excitement we’ve had in a long time, isn’t that right, Sansa?”

Sansa stiffens.

The thumping sound gets louder and louder, as they head toward the dining room — until his hand and Brienne’s hand are tight on their guns, until Yara reaches behind her back and holds out her palm for Brienne to put Yara’s gun back into it.

“We couldn’t leave the island because of Robert Strong, you see,” the child continues, his voice a light sing-song, the way children’s voice often sound. “Once Robert Strong lost his mind — oh my God, it was so horrific. We sent out teams of Walkers trying to kill him, but as you can see — our side has dwindled considerably. We had all but given up hope until we heard your gunshots last night. I tell you, I almost didn’t believe it. I thought it was my imagination!” The child laughs. “I’m so glad that fucker is dead.”

The thumping is coming from the closet — an old pantry, perhaps. The door has been retrofitted with steel bars running over the frame, creating a cage. They hear the ragged sounds of a voice crying out — Theon flinches and cowers next to them — Sansa is still and statuesque, even as her eyes grow a bit misty.

“What the hell? Who do you guys have locked up?” Yara says, advancing toward the door before another loud thump rattles them — before she hesitates.

The kid picks up a metal baseball bat that was propped against a nearby wall. He lightly swings, pretending to watch an imaginary ball fly far away. He says, “Ah, ah, ah! I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Stand back.”

The kid unlocks the door using a key that he pulls out of the pockets of his too-large jeans. He twists the knob and gently pushes the door open.

The smell of it hits them right away — not exactly of human waste, but of human staleness — this musky mixture of decayed sweat and blood. Brienne gags from beside him. Sansa turns her face away. And the thrashing, angry body of Roose Bolton slams itself against the steel bars, making the walls shake. Roose screams, guttural and vicious. Half of his face is scarred, burned.

Grey’s own blood runs cold, when he realizes that it isn’t Roose. It’s a Walker. Brown, maybe — but he’s never seen such rawness from a Brown. Maybe this is what happens to Browns that get locked up. Maybe Walkers have the capability of going insane, like all of them do.

He jumps a little bit and touches his gun, when the kid slams his bat against the bar of the cage, the bright, sickening clap of metal on metal makes the Walker scurry backward, away from the light.

The kid shrugs, and his voice is slow and casual when he says, “You wanted to know where my father was.”

Chaos breaks out in the room the moment he stalks over to the kid — shoves his hand into the kid’s dark greasy hair, kicks away the metal bat, and harshly yanks up as he presses the tip of his gun into the side of the kid’s head.

 

 

  
She looks at Jaime like he is a huge disappointment to her — which he is. She can believe that he asked her to leave — a part of her predicted as such, given how he’s been the last few days. She just had _hoped_ that he wouldn’t. But he has stupidly and pathetically regressed to some infantile state. She just keeps holding onto the version of him that she remembers — the version of him that she is actually fond of.

This person standing in front of her is an idiot.

“I need to talk to her alone,” he says, his voice barely above a whisper. “I’ll be back later.”

“No, you won’t,” Missandei says, casting a pointed glance at the impatient blond standing behind Jaime. “You won’t,” she repeats. “I’m not going to see you again. So don’t be a coward and just say bye to me like a man.”

“I _will_ see you again,” he says firmly.

“Do you even know your way back?”

He nods. “I do.”

She stares at his face long and hard — committing it to memory, just in case it’s the last time. She doesn’t believe his promises at all. She has seen the way his whole body changes when he talks about his sister.

Missandei looks into his eyes for a beat — taking in his handsome face. He’s become something familiar. He was kind, and he was protective of her. And it’s been nice knowing him.

She reaches out and squeezes his left hand, before lightly swinging it between them. “Call me if you need to,” she says, before pulling out of his gentle grasp, before she shoves her fists in the pockets of her jacket, spins around — shoes squeaking on the tile floors — and walks out of the building.

 

 

  
Brienne starts screaming at him right away, to put the gun down. She keeps shouting, “Put the fucking gun down, _now!”_

He tries to stay quiet, tries to stay focused, as his grip tightens on this fucking abomination. This thing smells like sweat and damp flesh. Through gritted teeth, Grey hisses, _“Who_ the fuck are _you?”_ He looks up at Sansa and Theon, who are both fearful — Theon cowering and shaking — Sansa tearing up and unable to speak. He’s pressing the gun harder to the kid’s head. “Who is this!” he demands.

He has the kid in a headlock — and he can feel the loud sobbing before the sound breaks over their screaming. He can hear the kid blubbering, saying, “Please, stop. Please stop! Please don’t kill me! I haven’t done anything! Please! Ma’am. Please, don’t let him hurt me!”

Jesus Christ.

Brienne raises her gun at him. Her voice is strong when she bellows, “Put down your weapon!”

“Just _listen_ to me for a second —”

“Put down your weapon!” Brienne repeats, over the sound of the crying child. “Or I _will_ shoot you.”

He calls her a fucking idiot and tells her to get the fuck out of the way. She keeps shouting to him that it’s just a child. He keeps shouting back at her, asking her if she’s fucking blind — because that is not just a child. He asks her if she even sees what’s fucking left of Roose Bolton caged up in a fucking wall like an animal. As the child’s crying gets more desperate and louder, Brienne tells Grey that she doesn’t want to shoot him, but she will. He can see Yara coming up from behind him, in of his peripheral vision.

And in that moment of distraction, he almost doesn’t make it — he only catches it at the last moment, shifting out of the way as the blade jabs towards his midsection, just barely missing his stomach. The kid has tears in his eyes as he snarls and bares his teeth and goes for another swipe at him — confident and well-practiced — with the knife. What the fuck.

After another too-close miss, Grey holds his gun tightly in his hand and smoothly arcs its full weight into the kid’s chin, not hard enough to kill him or give him a head injury — just enough to make him see stars. He hopes.

The child crumples to the ground in a dull thud. Unconscious.

 

 

  
He’s too pissed to even talk, as he rummages around drawers to find ties or rope to tie up the kid before he comes to. The Walker with Roose Bolton’s face keeps thrashing against the bars of his cage, rattling the room, pushing their anxiety to fever pitch until Brienne walks over and slams the door on him, only muffling the noise it makes.

Grey finds a coil of butcher’s twine and he mutely uses that to hogtie the stupid child up. He checks the kid’s pulse and his breathing. He hadn’t wanted to knock this fucker out. They can’t get answers out of him if he’s unconscious. He blames this on Brienne and Yara.

He stares at Sansa for a long moment. She’s standing across the room with her body pressed to the wall. He says, “You better start talking.”

“That’s Ramsay Bolton,” she says. “And he’s a White Walker.”

Yara expels a breath. “Oh God.”

 

 

  
Pod reads her mood and is quiet and careful to not get in her space, when she arrives back at the motel, sans Jaime. She asks him when the last time he had something to eat was — he tells her he had a small snack a few hours ago. She realizes that he had to ration out his food, because he had been stuck in the motel room all day. That’s when the guilt hits the pit of her stomach.

She shrugs back into her jacket, after just having taken it off. “Hey,” she says. “Wanna take a walk somewhere? I bet you’re curious about what King’s Landing looks like.”

 

 

  
“Did the procedure make him go insane?” Brienne softly asks Sansa.

Sansa shakes her head. “No,” she says softly. “He was a psychotic sadist long before that. And we were trapped here with him for years.”

“He’s just a kid now though,” Yara says. “Why didn’t you —”

“He’s _not_ a child,” Sansa interjects thickly, angrily.

“Even as the source of your fear becomes physically weaker and smaller — it doesn’t erase the impact of the fear,” he says.

“No,” Sansa says. “It doesn’t.”

 

 

  
He watches silently from the doorway as Brienne tells Sansa and Theon that they’re going to leave as soon as possible, while there’s still a good amount of light out. She waits for their confirmation. Sansa has expressed that she knows and remembers Brienne from when she was under the Starks' employ, but perhaps due to . . . the abuses she has suffered . . . she has a hard time knowing who to trust. Sansa shifts her gaze to Theon — who is brittle and precariously holding most of his shit together, but who is still wholly freaked out by their presence, who refuses to answer to his given name.

“Why you?” Sansa asks suddenly. “Why did my mother send you?”

Brienne intuits the real question. Her mouth droops into a frown. “Something happened to your father and brother Robb during the takeover,” she says.

“Are they —”

“I’m sorry.”

 

 

  
As Sansa goes to gather her things — just a modest amount, she said — Grey walks up to Brienne. She immediately says, “I’m sorry,” pausing, before she adds, “He looked just like a child.”

Grey tells her he’s done a quick once-over on the grounds. It looks like they are alone — Ramsay must have expended all of his Walkers trying to kill Robert Strong. But he can’t be altogether sure. He asks her what she wants him to do with Ramsay and with Roose.

Her eyes are clear and expansive — and forcefully cool as she tells him, “If you can, try to wake him up and see if there’s information worth having. Otherwise, put them both down.”

Before he leaves to take care of his tasks, he feels her heavy hand on his shoulder, just for a brief moment as she squeezes his bones and muscles. He knows that she feels really bad. He knows that she’s recognizing a core difference between the two of them. She’s acknowledging that one of her weaknesses and simultaneously one of her strengths is that she’s too preoccupied with preserving life sometimes. She’s acknowledging that she knows that there are things he’s significantly better at than she is.

“You know,” she says. “When I first promised Catelyn I’d bring her daughter back — I had always known that it would likely require me to kill Ramsay. So I was prepared for that.” She pauses. “But I guess I wasn’t.”

 

 

  
When he reopens the door, Roose Bolton’s broken body begins thrashing mindlessly against the bars of the cage again. Sansa had told them that Ramsay had tortured and murdered his father about four years ago, before turning him into _this_ and locking him up — as a reminder that the same can happen to her and Theon. She told them that Roose is actually a Black. Utterly useless for work — just a raw being.

Grey expends a bullet for this — quick and clean through the skull. The house goes quiet after that.

 

 

  
Yara is waiting for him at the entrance to the dining room, keeping a good distance from Ramsay’s slumped, unconscious body. She pushes off the wall when she sees him. She is emotional and pissed — and it’s never good to be in this emotional state and to do the kinds of things they are doing. She starts to say something before she clams up, shutting her quivering jaw tightly. He has gathered that she and her brother are — were — very close.

Then she says, “I’ve never seen a child get pistol-whipped before. I’ve never seen anyone get pistol-whipped before, actually. Do you think he’s going to wake up in time?”

“He’s not dead,” Grey says. “But it was a hard knock. He might not be coherent if and when he wakes up.” He’s also never really hit a child — or someone in a child’s body — like that before. Grey has checked Ramsay’s airway — unobstructed. There’s a pulse. He’s breathing. There are no cuts. Honestly, he didn’t expect for Ramsay to lose consciousness. He also didn’t expect for it to be this long before Ramsay regains consciousness. It’s been more than five minutes. His new small body is delicate. The more time ticks by, the worse it looks for Ramsay.

“I want to talk to him,” she says. “I want to —” She pauses, sighing. “How can someone _do this_ to other human beings?”

He frowns. “Sometimes, we’re not meant to get answers.”

Ramsay rouses ten minutes later, groaning and swaying with his hands and feet in ties.

 

 

  
“You’ve done this!” Yara screams into Ramsay’s face. “You’ve ruined us all!” Grey cannot even stop her from unloading all of her grief.

Ramsay breathes raggedly, his chest pulling in and expelling breaths with effort. He is in great pain — and tears are leaking out of his eyes, down his round cheeks. It’s such an eerie and unnatural sight, the sight of this child that he’s hurt like this. The dissonance and the disconnect between what is and what should be is just a real mind-fuck.

 _“Why!”_  
  
Ramsay just starts laughing — and coughing. He says, “My dad used to say something all the time. He used to always say, ‘It’s so easy to have principles and scruples.’” And then, he mutters, “I didn’t do this to you. I was fucking trapped in this house for all of these years. Whatever happened out there — you all did it to yourselves. And if you mean your brother — if you mean Sansa — well, I was just bored.”

 

 

  
Grey shoves Yara out of the room, with Brienne’s help. They are waiting for him. So he’s going to make this fast. Whatever information this person has in his brain — it’s not worth it. Grey checks his gun over.

“I bet you feel real good about yourself,” Ramsay says. “Fucking child-killer.”

“You’re not a child, though.”

“If you kill me, you will never know how to stop this,” Ramsay says condemningly, in his unnerving lilting little boy’s voice.

“Probably not,” Grey says. “But you don’t know how to stop it, either. Do you want me to leave you here to starve to death and to die slowly? Or should I take you with us and let you loose on unknowing and unsuspecting good Samaritans? What good are you to anyone now?” And then quietly, he adds, “I’ve known people like you. You don’t deserve forgiveness or grace.”

 

 

  
It’s a last-ditch manipulation, he knows. But even as Grey knows this — and even though has bore witness to this exact moment multiple times before in a past life — it still gets to him on a visceral level, the young, childlike grief that yanks itself out of Ramsay’s body as Grey holds the gun to his head. Ramsay is crying like a little boy — and Grey constantly flips back and forth in his resolve — though he knows how this has to end. It’s actually inhumane and cowardly to leave the guy tied up, to die slowly and alone without food and with a head injury, to be eaten by animals.

 

 

  
Brienne and Yara have dug shallow graves — the best they could do in the time that they have. He comes back into the dining room after cleaning the blood splatter off himself as best as he can, and he finds that the bodies of Roose and Ramsay have been moved, by Brienne and Yara, something his is grateful for.

Sansa says she wants to watch.

 

 

  
He silently leads all of them out of the house, down the invisible trail, back to the shore. It takes an agonizing two hours — so much faster because they aren’t fighting for their lives — and tense, because of what has transpired. The boat has been paid to come back once a day, to wait from midday until dusk.

Brienne yanks up one of the flares and the waterproof matches that she had shoved into the sand when they first arrived.

 

 

  
She snatches the knife from next to her when she hears movement in the dark, when the door to their motel room cracks open — she never sleeps very deeply anymore. She springs out of bed — her heart pounding — the knife held out in front of her, close to her chest.

“Shh,” the shadow says in the dark. “It’s me.”

She narrows her eyes, making out the shape. “Jaime,” she says. She lowers the knife, swallowing back some of the adrenaline.

“Told you I’d come back.”

“Are you okay?” she whispers, careful to not wake Pod up, the next bed over.

“I’m tired,” he says.

Her heart is still slamming in her chest. She has so many fucking questions for him — but she can make out the slump of his shoulders and she reluctantly decides that it can wait until morning. She slides her knife under a pillow on the bed and she shuffles back onto it, pulling and tugging back the rumpled covers.

When she’s lying down again, she reaches her hand out to him. She hears him toeing off his shoes. The bed creaks and dips as he crawls in next to her. His body is real and alive and warm next to hers.

She rolls over onto her side — it’s hard to see him in the dark — but she can make out certain shadows and shapes — she knows where his face is. She lays her palm on it. “Really,” she whispers. “Are you okay?”

She freezes when she feels his breath skim across her face, as his body shifts close to hers, as he pulls her into him with his left arm, his stump.

The kiss lasts for a short moment — before her mind starts screaming red and alarm bells start blaring. She shoves him back with both of her hands on his chest. Through the dark, she can’t fucking see what his face, what his expression, looks like at all.

She’s about to say his name — without a follow-up in mind — but then his body curls inward onto itself and starts shaking. He’s gasping in gulps of air. He’s crying. She touches his face again — and her fingers come back wet.

She says, “Hey,” before she winds her arms around him and pulls him to her body, tight, squeezing down the shaking of his shoulders. “You’re okay, now,” she says soothingly. “You’re okay.”

“She’s dead,” he mutters against her skin.

“Cersei?”

“No,” he says. “My daughter.”

 

 

  
It’s insanely fucking cold in Winterfell. He’s never been so fucking cold in his life. His body just shivers twenty-four-seven. The Starks are hospitable, but he can’t wait to get the fuck out of here. Yara kind of laughs at his melodrama — a rarity from her after the events of the last few days — and she calls him Ginger and tells him that he’s probably never been so far from the equator before. He tells her that he wasn’t made for this climate.

Brienne asks him what they will do now — now that they have all of this freedom laid out in front of them. She says it grimly with a strong ironic bent. He doesn’t miss that she referred to them as we. Yara reluctantly says she has to take Theon back home to the Iron Islands and figure him out from there. It’s where he belongs. She says, “The Dream Team is breaking up.”

Brienne mouth kind of quirks into a smile. “We’re not breaking up. We’re just on pause. We’ll have a reunion tour soon.”

“You’re mixing the metaphor a little, but I appreciate it,” Yara says.

“Is there a computer I can use?” he asks suddenly.

“Oh, cool,” Yara says casually. “I guess we’re done talking about how we will miss each other.”

 

 

  
When the alert came in on her phone — a suspicious activity alert — she almost lost all of her shit. She left Jaime and Pod to their meal without preamble. In a daze, she told them she remembered she had to do something. Jaime had called out to her — asking her what the fuck, what on earth did she have scheduled that she forgot?

At a nearby internet cafe, she rents a terminal with her heart in her throat. She’s stunned that the old platform is still up, that it still exists. But she supposes that even without anyone maintaining, of course it still exists. It’s with this bewildering sense of deja vu, that she goes through the layers of verification to log in. It has to be him because it’s his log-in. Everyone had a unique log-in. It can be no one else but him.

The first thing she writes out to him is: _You remember the protocol._

And it’s the stupidest thing she could’ve said to him because obviously he remembers the protocol. He has near-perfect memory.

He writes back: _Yes._ And there is a pause, one in which she stares at the ticking cursor in a daze. And then: _How are you?_

And a lot of memories are just stinging her eyes. She remember doing this with him a lot — the inevitable debriefs and downloads that they’d have to go through whenever he was done with his trips. They typically did it while he was still traveling, a layover here or there, sometimes on the plane if the connection was good enough. He didn’t want to put it off or wait. She had gotten the impression that his personal time was his personal time, something he clearly delineated from work. He was always eager to go off the clock and disappear into a life that she didn’t know about.

She writes: _You’re still alive._

It’s something she tries to convey with a certain lightness — kind of make it a joke — but seeing it displayed so simply on the screen — she second guesses herself. It sounds entirely too grave and serious. This is a horrible medium for all of the things she wants to say to him. She kind of wants to tell she’s been thinking about him — almost constantly — which probably means that she misses him. And she can’t believe that he’s okay — and she’s simultaneously not sure that he’s actually okay because she can’t see him. She would kill to be able to see him. She hates that this stupid thing doesn’t have video conferencing. It is an outdated piece of shit and she never got around to upgrading the workflow back when she had the power to do so. It was just never that pressing or relevant. And she never really gave many shits that she couldn’t see the other guys on Dany’s detail.

It takes a long time — a lot of blinking cursors — she wonders for a freak moment if the connection was lost — before he responds. He used to be a lot quicker at this — typing out information before she even got a chance to ask. But, she supposes, those times were completely different. They were perfunctory. They never felt as personal as this.

He writes: _Sansa is ok. Theon is ok._

She hastily types out the number of her burner phone. She asks him if he has access to a phone — all the while thinking that he must. If he has access to a computer, he must also have easy access to a phone. She tells him to call her.

 

 

  
He can hear the emotion in her voice right away, when she says hello. And this is probably why he kind of didn’t want to do this, in this way. Superseding the doubts and the reluctance though, was the overwhelming need to verify that she’s still alive.

He has no idea how he has gotten to this point, how he has gotten to the point where it feels this horrible and it hurts this badly — just listening to her breathe.

“I bet you have a lot to tell me,” she finally says, sounding oddly conversational after the long, tense pause after hello.

“Stuff has happened,” he says, cracking a small smile.

“Oh, funny coincidence. Stuff has happened here, too.”

 

 

 

 


	15. fifteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reunited and it feels so good. It also feels a little awkward, but what can ya do?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the awesome response to the last chap of this. It got me all inspired, and that's why this update is up real quick. <3

 

 

 

“You were both in that room years ago,” Brienne quietly says to Yara and Sansa. “So you know. Who are the White Walkers? _What_ are the White Walkers?”

“I’m not sure,” Yara whispers back. “It all sounded like a fucking fable to me. ‘The White Walkers are the immortals. The White Walkers are you and me.’”

“They figured out how to transfer consciousness, from body to body,” Sansa says. “That’s how they’d live forever. But — I don’t — he never told me how he did it — he just appeared one day. But — I don’t think you can just use any body.”

 

 

  
Jaime is watching her intently when she appears back at the motel room later — as she pulls off her sweat-soaked jacket — the faux leather traps in moisture and heat — and bares skin in her low-cut black tank top.

Before the takeover, she used to subside mostly on restricting dark pencil skirts and silk blouses. Days off were spent in loungewear — perhaps in reaction to her work clothes — stretchy pants and loose t-shirts. Her friends used to say to her, “If you got it, flaunt it.” She used to tell them she was too busy and too absorbed in her job to date. She was paranoid about wearing any come-hither clothes. She used to feel her skin crawl under the hungry gazes of men. She wore what she did so it didn’t encourage unnecessary attention — such was the extent of her parents' influence on her.

Now — it largely doesn’t matter because she’s already been to hell. She already knows what it looks like and what it feels like. 

She kicks off her boots before wordlessly pushing into the bathroom. She hears Pod call out, “We saved you half a sandwich, Missy!”

 

 

  
The Starks’ forces and their influence have dwindled significantly. They used to be the ruling family of Winterfell. Now, Catelyn lives in a large house with only a few loyal staff members, caring for her youngest sons by herself. It’s been years since Sansa has been home — years since she’s seen her mother.

“I _never_ believed them,” Catelyn says, holding onto her daughter’s face. “When they told me you were dead. Not for one second.”

“Where is everyone?” Sansa says, her face nearly white, her breath coming out in puffs of vapor. “I heard about Dad and Robb. But where’s Arya? Jon?”

“I don’t know.”

He touches Brienne’s shoulder to get her attention — to draw her away from the intimate family moment. After all, as much as people like them tend to be sentinels who stand watch — it doesn’t mean that they have to make it so easy to settle into their positions as outsiders. He tilts his head to the doorway, wordlessly suggesting that they go grab a bite or a drink or both.

 

 

  
He and Brienne have only been in the tavern for a few minutes — they have only just put in a small order for food — when they hear and see Yara scrape her chair back and away from the table in the far corner, as she gets up from it in disgust. They see her glare down at her brother before she bangs her fist on the table and spits, “Why don’t you just do us all a favor and just kill yourself, then?”

Grey exchanges a quick glance with Brienne, before he turns back to the bar top and pulls the mug of warm beer toward his body — he finds it utterly disgusting. He doesn’t understand this drink. It’s too sweet; beer is weird warm — but at least it stops him from completely freezing his ass off in this place. The snow was fun novelty for all of two minutes. Now he’s sick of it, and he’s ready to move on.

Yara’s arm on his back jostles him. A little bit of frothy liquid splashes on his hand. He got to take a bath when they first arrived and it was generally horrific, the amount of blood he washed off his body — but it also gave him new life.

“When are you guys heading out tomorrow? Have you bought tickets yet?” Yara says. She is drunk. “Maybe I will meet up with you sooner rather than later.”

“We’re not sure yet, what the plans are,” Brienne says calmly.

“Bullshit.” Yara snorts, leaning into him. Her hand blindly reaches out to paw his face, roughly pinching and rubbing at it. “You’re obviously going to King’s Landing to meet up with ass-face Lannister, Pod, and your girl — aren’t you, Sheila?” She kind of turns his face for him, so he can see her waggle her eyebrows. “Gonna finally get some R&R. Finally work out all those sexually repressed kinks you got in that wound-up, tight little thing, huh? Or maybe not so little?”

He slaps her hand — the sound is sharp and loud — as it hovers too close to his crotch.

“Ouch! Fuck!” She laughs, holding her slapped hand to her chest. “Damn. I hit a fucking nerve!” Her laugh is a repetitive titter, really fucking annoying. He is trying to moderate his responses so she doesn’t get more inspiration for this bullshit.

“Yara, come on,” Brienne says. “Lay off.”

Yara jostles his head around, with her other arm still hanging around his shoulders. “Little baby bear knows I’m just messing around.”

He roughly throws her off of him, without looking at her. “You should be more patient with your brother,” he says dully. “He’s been through a lot.”

 

 

  
It’s hard to talk with Pod always around — and they can’t spend their entire existence hiding out in a motel room. Jaime has softly said that they need to move on — he needs to move on. What transpired the other day is still largely an unspoken thing. She is deeply curious about what he has learned, but he is reticent to share it. Instead, he crosses his arms over his chest — a habit at least in part to camouflage his stump — and he follows her out the room, into the light drizzle of rain. She goes out under the guise of getting air. And it’s not a lie. She would like a moment to herself.

They are standing next to the garbage bins when he says, “Look, I’m sorry if I made things awkward between us.” The light raindrops cling to his lashes, mists his face. He is probably one of the most physically beautiful people she’s ever known.

This is the kind of romantic moment she used to fantasize about a lot — when she was a young, idealistic, melodramatic teenage girl reacting against an overprotective father who looked upon every male like a monster. Missandei used to lie in bed for hours at night and think about potential conversations in the rain with boys — the cusp of a declaration — references to a kiss.

Life was far simpler then.

“Why did you kiss me?” she whispers.

His mouth opens and shuts a few times — as he fights for the right articulation. She can see that he already knows the answer to the question. He’s just trying to phrase it properly.

And then he bitterly says, “I’m a rotten person.” And then he says, “I just wanted so badly to feel fucking _something_ beyond misery. I forgot myself. I forgot it was you. I just didn’t think. I didn’t consider what you have gone through and how you might feel — I’m sorry.”

Things hang in silence for a bit at that.

She wants to push back his apology — silently reject it. It’s a trap that constantly follows her — her victimhood. Her parents treated her as a person that constantly needed protection. Her brothers treated her like decoration — not to be played with or engaged with in the same way they treated each other. She had to exile herself so Grey wouldn’t die in the process of keeping her safe. She has found that Jaime generally puts all the women in his life on a pedestal — and even in his deepest moments of respect for her, he still assumes her lack of resiliency and her frailty. And he is the one missing a hand. Just _what is it_ about her that just looks so weak to everyone? Just _what is it_ about her that inspires so much protection from _men?_

And fuck him, for referencing Kraznys in such a cowardly way.

She’s too polite to express anger at him.

“Do you still love her?” she asks him pointedly.

His face looks tortured. He says, “I do. And I can’t ever be with her again.”

Missandei shakes her head, blinking back her tears. “What is it even like to love someone like that?”

“It’s a curse.”

 

 

  
Brienne nudges him, her eyes trailing over to watch as Yara makes her way back to her brother, more calm-headed after venting a bit. “So are we?” she asks him. “Going to King’s Landing?”

“I talked to Missandei,” he says reluctantly.

“And?” she prompts.

“We could. Go there.”

“I suppose we can also traipse through the Iron Islands with Yara and make her play host as she loses her mind from the stress of trying to rehab her brother as fast as humanly possible.”

“We could do that, too,” he says, leaning forward to loom over his godawful mug of ale. It has cooled to a tepid warmth.

When he turns his head toward her, he sees her wide mouth curl into a big smile — her face lit up and pink as she suddenly reaches out to lightly shove him. She’s laughing. “If you want to go King’s Landing, just say so.”

He kind of feels awkward because of _this_ — this friendliness and this idleness now that there’s nothing pressing on them, nothing threatening them. He’s been fucking living alone in the middle of nowhere for the past six years for a reason — he’s good at it. He’s only good at a select few things in life. He’s not the smartest. He’s not the most talented. He’s not a visionary.

He’s only good at killing people or — conversely — he’s good at keeping people alive. And he’s also good at being fucking weird and all fucked up in the head. He’s good at hiding it and keeping it all to himself. That mostly involves being alone.

“It’s up for . . . discussion,” he says haltingly. “I’m open. I have nowhere to be. No one is waiting for me.”

Brienne's laugh is just a short breath and a lift of her shoulder. She says, “Hey, that’s my line.” And after lifting her own cup of ale to her mouth, she mutters, “Same here, man. Same here. I have no one left.” The words kind of unexpectedly fell into seriousness. She realizes that it’s starting to become a bummer, so she lifts up her shoulders again — rapidly blinks at the mouth of her cup — before she tilts back and drinks the rest of it in one continuous gulp.

She quietly hiccups into her fist — he thinks it’s kind of endearing. And she turns her attention back on him. “Let’s go to King’s Landing. You followed me to your certain death and bled all over the earth because of me. That is insane. Yet, somehow we managed not to die. Now, let’s do what you want to do for a while.” Her mouth quirks into a smile. “God, when I say it that way — sounds like I owe you a huge one.”

 

 

He stumbles a few steps backward as his body absorbs Yara’s bone-crushing hug. He doesn’t even know what to do with his hands, so he mostly floats them in the air. He kind of starts freaking out — but she’s too fast so he doesn’t get a chance to full-on freak out — when she grabs his face and plants a long wet kiss over his mouth. Behind them, he can hear Brienne chuckling.

Yara’s face, with a droopy expression, is so close to his. And she says, “Jesus, relax. I bet you rarely hear this from the ladies, but you’re just too masculine for me. I’m just not into you like that. Duh. I’m just gonna miss the shit out of having adventures with you.” She stares at him pensively for a moment before she pulls him in for another tight hug. “Take care of each other, okay?”

And after a moment, she groans loudly and says, “God, Grey. This is the part where you say, ‘I will miss you, too, Yara,’ you fucking weirdo.”

 

 

  
Brienne tells him that she’s only been to King’s Landing a handful of times, when she was traveling through for a job. She actually hates King’s Landing. She’s a mellow person. She likes slower-paced cities. King’s Landing is a clusterfuck of confusion and people. It stresses her out.

He tells her that it’s easy to hide out in King’s Landing. And that’s when she points out to him that there’s really no one to hide from anymore, not really. Who is really looking for them anymore? No one. They are small potatoes. She tells him that they have to start rewiring their brains. The rest of their lives starts now. This is the fade-to-black part of the movie. This is where they walk off into the sunset and sip mai tais on the beach for the rest of their lives.

He tells her that that sounds godawful.

She chuckles, getting lightly jostled by the crowds and crowds of bodies in the airport. Airports used to be clean and easy — they could walk right through the terminals without tickets to see planes take off — he used to do that during the stint where his mom cleaned airports at night. But these days, after the takeover, it is a chaotic, expensive mess of security protocols. “Not into mai tais?” she asks. “Or not into beaches?”

“Honestly, I’ve never had either,” he mutters, dropping his bag onto the conveyor belt. They had to ditch their guns — obviously. Their guns fetched a handsome sum. Now he has money burning a hole in his pocket and only his skin, bones, and muscles left to protect himself with. Which, honestly, is not too bad a feeling. “I’ve never had a mai tai, and I’ve never been to a beach. At least not a hot one, which is what you mean, right?”

“Oh, wow. Why aren’t we headed to the sun and surf right now?” She grins at him. “I love the ocean. I love the sand. I love craggy rocks and the threat of death on them, too. My dad used to flip out so much whenever I took our boat out without telling him. I used to leave him notes on the table — but he still flipped out, all the same.”

 

 

  
Pod and Jaime want to come with her to the airport because they are going stir-crazy. She feels especially bad for Pod because young boys need space to go out and explore and learn. She sometimes catches herself thinking that Pod should really be in school — but then she remembers the world around them. Jaime has asked her what the point would be — to what end? He dryly asked her if it’s so Pod can go to college and get a job?

 

 

  
“Brienne!” Pod calls out, waving wildly. “Brienne! Over here! Hi!”

“Hey,” she says, giving them a small wave as they slowly make their way over.

“Hi,” Grey says.

Missandei returns the small wave. She says, “How was the flight? Good?”

“Oh, I see,” Jaime interrupts. “You guys are apparently only really good at goodbyes. Not so much hellos.” He turns his attention to Brienne. “Hey, Gorgeous. I have missed your natural ability to eclipse the sun.”  
  
Missandei roughly slams the heel of her hand against the center of his chest. Jaime curls inward a little bit with a light exhale. He narrows his eyes at her, and she turns her attention to Brienne and Grey. “Forgive him,” Missandei says. “He’s honestly had a really shitty few days, so he’s been extra cranky.”

“Oh, really?” Brienne says in a deadpan. “Has poor little Jaime had a trying few days? We just almost fucking died multiple times and bore witness to some insane fucking shit and fucking murdered people and now there’s nary a fucking PTSD counselor in sight in this brave new world. But I am _so sorry_ to hear Jaime has had a shitty couple of days.”

Brienne pushes past them — pissed and red-faced. They all watch her walk onto the train platform. Grey’s hands are in his pockets — and he can’t help but crack a small grin of amusement, before he nods at Missandei, Pod, and Jaime — before he follows Brienne.

Jaime lets a short and quiet laugh slip out — it’s the first time his shitty mood has lifted in the last few days. “I wasn’t even fucking around,” he says. “I really _did_ miss them.” After a pause, he says, “They seem abnormally close. Do you think they’re doing it?”

“What?” Missandei says.

“Sex.”

 _“What?”_ she repeats, as Pod blushes and averts his eyes. “Shut up,” she says.

“You’re probably right,” Jaime says, drifting his way toward the platform. “It’s probably that closeness that comes when you’ve killed people together. Brothers in arms shit. It’s probably not bared genitals shit. _Probably.”_ And then Jaime spontaneously laughs again. He points at her. “Look at your fucking face.”

 

 

  
Missandei purchases their train tickets with the swipe of her card. She tells them to go through her if they want to buy anything. Brienne starts to ask a bunch of probing questions about the intention of this and the purpose — but he remembers. He knows her tendencies and how she likes to work. He digs out some paper currency out of his pocket, folds it in his palm, and he silently slips it to Missandei while they are on the train, swaying with the starts and stops. She jumps a little bit at the unexpected touch — and then she asks them if they are hungry.

 

 

  
Over dinner in their homebase of Little Vaes Dothrak — the five of them sitting squished in at a rickety table that is far too small for them — she watches as Brienne leans over and quietly says something to Grey. It’s not so intimate and flirtatious as a whisper into his ear — she’s just talking to him — but he bites back a grin at whatever Brienne said and looks at her, slowly shaking his head. He tells her that his Dothraki is very bad.

“You told me you can order food!” she says.

“I _can._ Sort of. I don’t know this word.”

Missandei didn’t even know he can speak any Dothraki. It wasn’t in his profile when he was hired on. She tries to lean forward to ask him what he needs — she can ask for it. But the noise in the restaurant is too loud and he doesn’t see her very, very microscopic and subtle attempt at trying to catch his attention. She is the fucking biggest dork in the world. And it suddenly feels like she’s transported back in time to more than six years ago.

Brienne keeps nudging him, until he sighs — relenting — until he flags down a server. Jaime is also taking an interest — alert and eavesdropping.

In very rudimentary Dothraki, Grey asks the server if they can make a mai tai.

In the Common Tongue, the server, a young frazzled girl who has tons of tables clamoring for her attention, says, “What’s that? We have beer. And that’s it. Do you want a beer?”

Next to him, Brienne bursts out laughing, leaning into him. “You know what Yara would say, if she were here right now?”

“Oh God, probably call me a girl name and tell me to demand a mai tai like a man.”

Brienne’s laugh turns into snorts. The server gets fed up with them and leaves. Grey half-heartedly calls out an apology in Dothraki — which sounds a lot better than his drink order. Missandei sees him bite down on his bottom lip, trying not to laugh as he swats at Brienne — and Missandei kind of feels a little sick over it. It’s not that she’s jealous. It’s just that she keeps missing opportunities. She keeps missing out on being able to actually know him.

“Hey,” Jaime says casually, his hand on the table, his other arm slung across the back of Pod’s chair. “So you guys wanna drink?” He turns to Missandei. “Tell us, where is a place we can get a drink? As you keep reminding me, I’m not familiar with the squalor areas of King’s Landing.”

 

 

  
She used to grab cocktails — or to be accurate, a cocktail — with friends at a bar nearby her old apartment near the university district. That is entirely too far away to trek. And she’s still paranoid about getting scanned and having their prints flagged in the system. They might get flagged; they might not. But she was thrown into a cage and shipped hundreds of miles away. That has fucked with her brain. She will not get scanned if she can help it. No one around her will get scanned if she can help it.

People generally seem to make inaccurate assumptions about her — she’s not altogether sure why. She’s always generally less worldly than people think she is. She’s generally less experienced than people think she is. She’s generally less confident than people think she is. She used to spend her days off reading and taking long walks by herself. She didn’t have tons of friends. The ones she did have were low-key like her. She tells Jaime that the nightlife has changed over the years. She no longer recognizes anything.

But she does pick out overlapping conversations in Dothraki. And she does find a door with a bouncer — a big beefy guy with a flashlight that lets them in for a few paper bills.  She sees the scar running down his neck into his shirt and she wonders if he's a Walker.

 

 

  
“Well?” Jaime says expectantly, watching him sip the mai tai, before he puts it down and slides it over to Pod.

Grey shrugs. “Tastes like juice.”

“Oh, I love juice!” Pod says, cupping his hand to the glass.

“Alright, alright. Let’s get serious about this," Jaime says. "You in, babe?”

Brienne swings her head back, like she’s smelled something nasty — and she also shifts her eyes around the room.

Jaime laughs. “Yes! I’m talking to you! Brienne! You wanna drink?”

“No, not really,” she mumbles, avoiding eye contact. “I just want a beer.”

 

 

  
She’s doing it again. She’s idealizing him too much in her head. In her head, he’s just unattainable and unreachable. And it makes her feel so self-conscious and awkward that she can’t even have a normal conversation with him. Every time she looks at his face, every time she catches him watching her in confusion — her own face just burns in shame. She’s being so fucking weird and awkward. It almost makes her miss the parts where they were all injured and bleeding and she was grief-stricken and broken and raw — and they were all only preoccupied with staying alive another day.

Idleness — free time — leads to these kinds of moments.

 

 

  
“Holy shit. And then what happened?” Jaime asks.

Grey momentarily shuts his eyes and kind of laughs. “Then she cut off his head.” He's trying to keep a straight face as he mimes some sawing motions at his neck. “And threw it off the hill like it was a bag of garbage.” He mimes that too, sending Jaime into a fit of drunken giggles.

Brienne rolls her eyes. “Well, _yeah._ When you work so hard to kill someone, you want to make sure they don’t magically reanimate. You know?”

“Yeah, for real,” Grey says, gesturing between the two of them. “I was right there with you, Brie. On the same page. I just couldn’t say so because my throat was crushed and whatnot.”

“That’s so crazy!” Jaime says. And then to Pod, he explains, “You never saw this guy — but this motherfucker was like, _boom_ — he was like, _erect.”_

 _“What?”_ Grey says, staring at Jaime. _“Was he?”_

“You know, dude. Erect. Like a big statue.”

“Oh _God.”_ Grey shakes his head. “Dude, that wasn’t at all what I thought you meant!”

Jaime bursts out laughing. “Dude! Get your head outta the gutter!”

“You said that in an unnecessarily weird way, man!”

“It has multiple meanings!” Jaime pushes out, his voice straining from trying to be understandable over his laughing. “You can be erect like, you know —” he’s stock still for a second, thinking, before he drops his glass on the bar counter, starts giggling again, and starts making a jacking off motion with his left hand. “And you can be erect like this.” He puts his arms to his sides and stands up straight, with his chest puffed out. “It has multiple meanings!” he repeats. “Missy!” he calls out. “Missy, you’re good with words and languages. Will you tell this filth-bucket that erect has more than one meaning?”

All eyes turn to her. And she generally blushes — it’s probably okay because the bar is so dark and her complexion is also dark enough to hide it. She says, “I’m not sure he’s disputing you on the multiple meanings of it, Jaime. I think it’s more that there’s one obvious meaning and that’s the one that most people go with.”

Grey points at her, making her insides go spazzy for a second. And then to Jaime, he says, “That is correct.”

 

 

  
Grey clears his throat and leans back against the bar counter, watching Brienne try to teach Pod how to play pool, as Missandei looks on, bored, lightly swinging herself back and forth beside Pod on a stool. “So what did you say?” he asks Jaime.

“What could I have said? I mostly just sat there, just you know — in disbelief. I tried to convince myself that she was lying and it couldn’t fucking be true. It shouldn’t even fucking be possible.” Jaime sighs. “I didn’t even really know her, you know? Myrcella. Not really. She was just this person that existed, that I had to shut out of my mind. I’d come around every now and then to give her gifts when she was younger, sometimes. Um. She just saw me as her uncle. And that was fine. Um. You know, I don’t even know what I’m mourning half the time — whether I’m actually mourning her or her mother. Or what her mother used to be. I just — I don’t know.” He hears Jaime exhale out a ragged breath. And then he hears Jaime say, _“Fuck.”_

“I didn’t know my father,” Grey whispers. He’s changing the topic slightly — but maybe the distraction will help. “He, uh — my mom — shit, how do I explain this?”

Jaime huffs out a humorless laugh. “Just say it. I just told you about my fucking relationship with my sister. And all of the ensuing shit. Don’t worry about my delicate sensibilities.”

“Um, okay. Um, my father and mother didn’t really know each other. My father was her client. She was, um, a prostitute. And one day he attacked her and beat her and forced her. That’s what she told me, at least. And then she learned she was pregnant. With me. And, uh, she decided to keep me.” He clears his throat again. “I bring this up because when I started school, people would ask me about my mom and dad, and I had to tell them my dad was dead. Kids were sometimes shitty. But the worse was when adults got all sad for me. And that used to just — drive me nuts. I used to get so sad and angry and I just wanted to hurt myself over it. And I couldn’t tell anyone the truth. My mom made it very clear that I was never to tell anyone the truth. But she’s dead now. So I guess it’s okay to tell you.”

Jaime sinks further into his seat, his chin almost tipping into the counter. Grey feels Jaime’s hand on his forearm. And then he hears Jaime says, “That blows. But I still think my story beats yours, in overall tragedy.”

“Oh, I mean, I didn’t realize it was a contest,” Grey says, grinning. “I can up the ante, if you want? I have more stories.”

“Man! I like you! I didn’t want to, but I do!” Jaime is grinning, too — brightly for a moment before it slinks off, fading back into seriousness. “I can’t do this anymore,” he says, his tone low. “I can’t fucking stand being stuck in motel room — in a city — with nothing to do for days and days. I’m going fucking insane. I don’t think I’m down for an ordinary existence where we bide time in relative safeness and relative obscurity until we die. Just months ago, I was killing people for someone else’s entertainment. You know what that life is like. It’s a horrible life. But I only have one kid left. He has to be safe.”

“I get it,” Grey says softly. “Are you asking for help?”

“I don’t deserve help.”

“Brienne would help, if you’d just ask.”

Jaime’s laugh in response to it is loud and hopeless. “Is this what we do now? We blindly chase children?”

 

 

 


	16. sixteen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Our boo-boos continue not to get it together enough to bone. But they are productive with other things!

 

 

 

Grey doesn’t entirely believe that Jaime isn’t completely full of crap — or he doesn’t entirely believe in Jaime’s judgement when it comes to his own family — so everything Grey says that refers to Tommen has a caveat tacked onto it. He keeps shooting Jaime these meaningful looks that are mystifying to her — and he keeps grunting out these nonsensical shorthand sentences to Brienne — phrases like, “The edge is overloaded.” And Brienne has been keeping up with the thread of his side conversation without hiccup or pause.

And Pod is just too young, impressionable, and starstruck — with his jaw swaying in the wind. Missandei is alone in feeling like an outsider. It took her a stunningly long time to figure out that longs and lats refer to longitude and latitude. It was a realization that drew out embarrassment. Because in another life, she used to have an expertise and a usefulness. Everyone — including her sometimes — has forgotten this.

“To what end, though?” Jaime says, reclining against the wall on the bed and that he shares with her, addressing Grey and Brienne. “What value can he fetch? He’s just a kid.”

Brienne is slouching in the desk chair, the wood frame squeaking underneath her weight as she props her long legs up on the foot of the bed. She blows her clumpy sweat-dried blond bangs out of her eyes and she looks around the room, assessing them all silently. Then she says, “Myrcella was just a kid, too.” She bounces the back of her head against the chair’s arch. “Once we have access to whatever law enforcement database, let me also have a look at it, will you? I might see things you don’t.”

It takes Missandei a beat to realize that Brienne directed that last part to her.

“Oh,” Missandei says lamely, also caught off guard by Brienne’s tone. It’s a fairly benign tone, but also firm and more assertive than she was anticipating. “Sure,” Missandei adds, pulling her hands from behind her back, clasping them together in front of her pelvis.

“You’re such a _cop,”_ Grey drawls, saying cop with an elongated affectation, making Brienne grin at him.

“I know,” Missandei says — projecting her voice a little on principle alone. “I remember. I’ve profile her, too.”

If that made things a little weird, no one gives her indication that they notice. Brienne just widely stretches her arms, also cracking her neck before she suddenly slams her feet on the ground and roughly stands up, sending the desk chair careening backwards. It hits the edge of the desk as she announces that the time difference is going to be a bitch. Apparently, that’s her way of saying bye — because Grey immediately straightens from his lean against the wall and starts to follow her out of the room.

“I’m never going to get to sleep,” Brienne mutters, wrenching the door open.

“Hey!” Pod says, jumping off of his bed, scrambling to scurry after them before they shut the door in his face. “If you guys aren’t sleepy yet, you’ve _gotta_ tell that story about Robert Strong again!”

 

 

  
At first, she can’t tell if Jaime is serious or if he’s taking the piss out of her, when he stands too close to her like a jackass and quietly says that he can make himself scarce for a bit — go harass Brienne using all the things she’s insecure about — so stuff about her face and body — so that Missandei can have some alone time to catch up with her guy.

She mostly just stiffens — refuses to look at him in the face — and tensely says a whole lot of nothing. As sweat leaks out of the pores on her face and her back and her pits, she says, “Are you mocking me? I already feel like an idiot, so you really don’t have to drive it home.”

And then she hears him lightly laugh — humorlessly. And then he says, “I’m sorry.” He sighs. “I’ve been apologizing to you a lot lately. I’m sorry I’m no good at this.” He gestures between the two of them. “At not being alone. It’s why I have no friends, by the way.”

She’s so tired — not physically — but just mentally. She’s feels broken down and empty inside — and inexplicably hot in her own skin and in her eyes. She brushes him off — she keeps reminding herself that he is really having a really, really shitty time in life, too — and she tells him she just feels like hanging out by herself for a while, as she picks up her jacket from the bed and shrugs back into it. It smells like smoked meat and the musty, human-y smell of stale sweat now. It used to be sweet and perfumed. It also used to hang on the frame of a teenage girl.

She tells him she’s going to just take a walk. “I’ll be back within the hour. And if not, then good riddance, I guess.”

He frowns. “Don’t say that. Not even as a joke.”

Before she leaves, she expels out a short laugh, too.

 

 

  
There is still enough light outside — the streets are illuminated from the lamps in apartment buildings. She doesn’t venture too far — she actually doesn’t have the guts to go and get herself killed. She mostly paces the block a few times, thinking about Kraznys before she gets so insanely pissed at herself for wasting such time that she wants to rip out her own hair. After she loses it a little bit — after she sucks back down her despair — she composes herself before she walks back into the internet cafe that she usually frequents.

She’s a regular now. And she can’t tell if Amir — the sentinel at the desk — would sell her out to a Blue when pressed enough, or if he has some semblance of loyalty. One thing she does know is that she can’t spend an entire day holed up in an internet cafe. It’s too open and dangerous. Buying a machine off of him is also open and dangerous, but she figures it will be the lesser of two dangers. She’s been very nice to him, in the short time that they have known each other. Hopefully that buys some grace. In a way, she learned this from Daenerys. In another way, it’s entirely against the grain of Dany’s way of operating.

No one bothered to scrub the internet, probably due to its limitless vastness, probably also due to the way they used to take information for granted.

She cups her own warm cheeks before she types out her parents names in a frantic jumble of key strokes. She makes a typo, but the old reports come up easily anyway.

 

 

  
The thick brown paper crinkles against her body as she hugs the laptop close to her chest. Her heart is hammering — in a mixture of fear, because it’s so dark and quiet out, and excitement. She will have the whole world in her hands again. Once she figures out satellite internet and how to purchase it anonymously. Amir was so reasonable and fair.

 

 

  
Jaime is lying in bed with the lights off — alone in the room. Pod must be sleeping in the other room and probably getting in the way of all the hypothetical probably-not sex that Grey and Brienne could be having. Which is nice.

After carefully laying the wrapped laptop on the desk, she wordlessly kicks off her boots and strips off her outer layers. She smells rank, and she’ll want to take a bath or shower before they start traveling again — and there’s an entire vacant bed open to her — but she’s also gotten too used to having him close.

She really needs to break old habits and stop being so fucking clingy and codependent.

She collapses face down on the empty bed and sighs into the musty mattress. She feels accomplished. And now, physically tired.

“Welcome back. Glad you didn’t die. Are we still being awkward with each other?”

She rolls over onto her back.

“I’ve been alone with only my thoughts to keep me company. I close my eyes and I hear the blood-curdling scream of virgins and puppies and shit. It’s been pretty fucking horrible. I guess I meant to say that I’m glad you are back.”

 

 

  
He starts talking nonstop — a continuous nervous babble in his clear voice, picking his words precisely and strategically. He tells her that he might have just needed the time to let it all sink in and process — for the apparent facts to journey their way through his brain. Usually with that comes clarity and a sense of understanding. But actually, he’s been panicking more and more, as time goes on. He tells her he cannot contain it — he doesn’t clarify what it is. Instead, he quickly tells her that something has gone horribly wrong, and he should’ve had the foresight to know that the decisions he made as a young man would have these kinds of dire consequences. How could he not have known that? On some level, he must’ve known. And yet — he went ahead anyway.

“Jaime,” she says, interrupting, “I don’t understand —”

“She said Myrcella was dying anyway — just like Joffrey had died anyway,” he says, his voice sounding breathy and far away. “She said that — this way — our daughter still lives on in some form. But — I don’t know how someone — in such grief — can even think about themselves enough to do what she chose to do.”

“God —”

“But she told me she had to. Because she is destined to outlive all of her children. Because she is destined to lose power and her seat to someone younger and more beautiful than she is. Then she asked me who can possibly be younger and more beautiful than Myrcella. She also said that this is all Tyrion’s fault and he is trying to kill her. She has fucking lost her mind.”

Missandei doesn’t know what to say.

“Why would my brother take Tommen though?”

 

 

  
She wakes up too fast and the room is too hot and she’s dehydrated from alcohol that it all makes her head throb painfully as she fights to keep her eyes open against the morning light. Missandei blocks the sun rays with her hand and rolls her hips over to look at Jaime on the other bed — snoring with his right arm thrown over his face to block the sun, his stump now a familiar site that no longer surprises her unexpectedly. They had stayed up very late talking.

The clothes she has in her arms are still slightly damp because they didn’t get enough air circulation after she washed the articles in their tiny toilet room. Her boots are clunky and they make noise as she takes long strides toward the public showers — trying to get there fast so she can wash the shit of the previous day off of her body and just try to start over again.

“Oh my _God.”_ She accidentally drops a shirt and her underwear on the floor as she lifts her hand to block the image of his body — totally saw enough — from her eyes. She shuts them, scrunching up her nose.

She hears him plainly say, “The lock is broken.” And then she hears some shuffling around — he’s getting dressed.

Her eyes are still closed and her hand is still blocking her face. “Yeah, I know. One of the guys who works here is a fucking pervert. There’s a block of wood I’ve been using to wedge the door shut.” Her voice is bouncing against the tile walls.

“I didn’t see any block of wood. Someone probably took it — _wait.”_ His voice tightens. “Some piece of shit has been watching you shower?” he asks quietly.

“Been _trying_ to, I think,” she corrects, trying to keep things light. “Most of the time, Jaime actually stands watch. But he’s kind of incapacitated at the moment.”

“You can look now.”

When she opens her eyes — it’s so nice to see him up close again. The first thing she sees is his very nice face. It’s utterly glum and humorless. He’s dressed. And it’s a little embarrassing — that he’s holding her shirt and her underwear out to her. She kind of sheepishly takes her clothes from him and kind of says an inaudible thank you. This is definitely the second time she’s caught a glimpse of him naked. It’s now a thing she can keep count of. It’s kind of nice that they are choosing not to talk about it. Her hair is a stupid, crazy mess. She wants to swallow up all of the feelings. Or just get swallowed up by them and die.

He’s rubbing the back of his neck with his hand, grimacing. “Do you, uh, want me to stand at the door? While you shower?”

The question is so surprising and unexpected that she kind of breaks out into a full smile — just in reflex — and also because he said something funny. From his face — she quickly realizes she doesn’t want to give him the wrong impression — she’s not laughing at him — so she nods and she warmly says, “I’ll be quick. Promise. Thank you.”

“Um, uh — so, which side of the door does Jaime stand on?”

She really does laugh at that — the sound of her hearty chuckles echoing. “The outside of it, of course!” she says, almost swatting at him with the ball of her clothes in her fist. “What sort of question is that!”

His face is open and curious — and surprised. “It was a logistical one,” he says.

 

 

  
The past, present, and an unformed future kind of converge together as they eat sandwiches and suck up all the air in a tiny motel room. Grey and Brienne have a very comfortable working style. Neither are particularly verbose, so they don’t have arguments or disagreements. They do very light discussions that generally yield no arguments. Grey is far more tactical and detail-oriented than Brienne. He’s also more uncaring about broad implications of certain actions — which she focuses on more.

Brienne also found him some lined paper that she pilfered from the front desk and gave him the seat at the desk. After laying down the paper, she explained to them that Grey’s auditory memory is not as good as his visual memory, so it’s nice for him to be able to draw out things or scribble things as they think through stuff. Missandei is generally trying not to be juvenile and constantly compete with Brienne over who knows the most facts about Grey — so she generally nods and shrugs.

Pod knows enough to stay quiet as they think aloud.

Jaime — she keeps learning again and again — has an impatience for Grey’s insane level of minute detail in planning. He keeps trying to move ahead before things are fully cooked. And it is nice, the way Brienne shuts Jaime down in those moments, to give Grey more time.

“You’re just like Yara,” Brienne tells Jaime, her current apathy for him coloring her tone. “She’d try and rush him all the time, too.”

"Don't compare me to her," Jaime says.  "I'm obviously way better with the ladies."

Brienne looks at him quizzically.  "Not really.  You thanked me for agreeing to this crusade by punching me in the shoulder and avoiding eye contact."

"It's because I can't stand —"

"I'm going to fucking kill you if you say 'your face.'"

"I was going to say emotionally charged moments.  You have issues, lady."

Missandei is actually an information junkie, too. That was one of the very first, very random quirks about him that made her do a doubletake and start to see him as more than one of Dany’s many, many employees. His level of preparation was such a cool thing about him when they first started working together. She wanted to know everything about why he was the way he was — so that they could compare notes.

She remembers, once, him telling her that he actually doesn’t have a photographic memory. She remembers him telling her that that’s not actually a real thing. What he has is an aptitude, perhaps a natural talent. And then he added many many grueling hours of work into training that aptitude. She remembers him describing it to her as a muscle. She also remembers eagerly nodding at him — eagering saying yes, that is exactly what it it, telling him she feels and experiences it in the same sort of way.

 

 

  
“Write down the specs you need,” Grey says flatly, holding out a scratch piece of paper and a pen out to her.

“Huh?” she says, with her mouth hanging open, casting quick glances at the others.

“So I can get you the right equipment,” he says quickly, with only a slight air of patience.

She’s a little distracted because she’s pretty sure that he means he plans to steal equipment for her. “We don’t have to worry about that —”

“Yeah, we do,” he cuts in.

“Well, actually —”

“We _can’t_ stop at internet cafes and have you spend hours in them in every fucking city, Missandei.”

She straightens her spine at the sharpness and the bite in his words.

She’s only starting to think of something to snipe back at him with, when Jaime takes over her moment by aggressively saying, “She’s trying to tell you that she already procured a computer yesterday, asshole. It’s packed and in my bag.” Jaime then gives her a smile and his one fist to bump. “Way to plan ahead, Missy.”

“Oh,” Grey says softly.

“Yeah, _oh,”_ Jaime says. “Try fucking letting your girl get a word in edgewise once in awhile. She has a brain, too, you know.”

“I _know_ she has a brain,” Grey says defensively, almost looking hurt.

“Okay, let’s also try to talk directly to her,” Brienne says, cutting in. “She’s a person, and she’s sitting right here.” She pauses for a moment, before groaning and rolling her eyes at herself. “Oh my God, I’m doing it, too.”

 

 

  
She thought she’d get through it okay — already resting on her laurels when she told him that it’s very important to them that he’s going to be safe, and she didn’t break down over the words. But it’s when she starts to tell him about how much pride she feels in him and how he’s so young and his life should be about just enjoying and savoring and being frivolous in his youth — that’s when she sees how his eyes start to mist over and fill with water. That just makes her lose it. Part of it is that she has spent so much of her life saying goodbye to people. She really ought to be better at this by now.

She starts shaking as she composes herself — and she reminds the both of them that there’s nothing to be sad about — as she wipes away her tears with her knuckle — aware that Brienne is waiting for her turn behind them. Missandei tells Pod that she thinks he will like the Iron Islands a lot.

“Read a lot, okay?” she tells him, grasping onto his shoulders as he nods solemnly. “I mean, run around outside and go nuts in the wide open space.” She reaches her hand up to tap his forehead with two fingers. “But _this_ is important, too, okay?”

 

 

 


	17. seventeen

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Brienne is a woman. Grey keeps wondering if Jaime is going to ruin their fragile new bromance with egregious betrayal. Missandei finally gets some alone time with the object of her affection.

 

 

 

She looks at Brienne warily and in confusion — because she doesn’t really get why Brienne is walking toward her with intent. Missandei kind of looks to her left and her right, to see if Jaime or Grey had suddenly materialized next to her or something.

“Hey,” Brienne breathes, straightening her back and wincing a bit as it cracks audibly. Brienne probably intended to get relief for her sore muscles and her spine, but the general effect of the motion serves to remind Missandei that she is so feminine and tiny and weak and frail and just so prone to random bursts of almost-dying. Brienne’s face is flushed — another curiosity. Brienne lowers her voice and — frowning — she says, “So I was wondering if you had any pads or tampons.”

Understanding floods through her. “Ohhh,” Missandei says, drawing out the syllable. “Um, not exactly. But I have something.”

 

 

  
She watches Brienne roughly tear open the plastic packaging of the cup — just acting agitated as the material crinkles in her large hands. Missandei feels as if she’s been dismissed, not so much in an aggressive way, but because Brienne is distracted. But Missandei lingers anyway — because Brienne is sure to have questions.

“It looks like a diaphragm,” Brienne finally mutters, holding the cup in her palm, examining it under the light. They are both jammed in the washroom, with the door only partly shut. And Missandei pointedly ignores the fact that Brienne apparently knows what a diaphragm looks like.

“It was way cheaper than tampons and pads. And it’s reuseable. So should last for a long time.” Missandei shrugs. “It was a game-time decision.”

“No, I get it. I just haven’t ever used one of these.”

“It helps if you sit down when you put it in.”

Brienne’s frown deepens at that. Missandei refrains from being a cliche and breaking the awkwardness with a comment about how it utterly sucks being a woman sometimes. Instead, she sighs and says, “The cool part is extraction. It’s a bloody mess. It’s neat because your hand looks like it’s killed a man.” She pauses, remembering how bloody her cut hand looked after she strangled Kraznys to death. “But you’ve actually killed men before —” She blurts it out because she’s trying to distract herself from her own thoughts, using information based on what she remembers from Brienne’s file, many years ago. Missandei immediately sees when Brienne’s face registers the small slip-up — her eyes narrow slightly. Missandei decides to go forward casually. “So it’s probably not a novelty,” she finishes.

After a moment of silence — she realizes that Brienne is not at all keen on continuing this conversation — Missandei pushes off of the wall and she casually says she’ll just leave Brienne to it, then.

 

 

  
When he suggests that she take off her long-sleeved shirt — for more than one reason: she looks miserable, her movements are restricted, he can’t see her form well enough — she naturally freezes and the red flush from her face actually drains away, leaving her mostly white with fiery ears. She drops her stance but her body tenses. She looks like she doesn’t know what to say to him.

He puts a hand on her shoulder and gently says, “You don’t have to. It was just an idea. You’re sweating a lot.” He reaches to the side and picks up a bottle of water — the bottle is being reused. The water is from the faucet and tastes overly chlorinated. He hands it to Brienne, who forces herself to relax her body before taking it from him.

She says, “Thanks.”

Once, before Daenerys disappeared behind a hotel door for the night after a long fundraising event, after he handed her back her purse and her shiny shoes — she told him that he had quite the intuition, when it came to women.

He had been with her all day and her hectic schedule barely allowed her to eat — she was the type of person that often forgot to eat, so someone set up her phone to chime every four hours, to remind her to have a snack. But that day — she had blown through all of her chimes. As a result, the two glasses of sparkling wine she drank must’ve affected her more than they should’ve. He chucked up her comment as one of those mysterious things that did not need a response — but then she looked up at him and asked him if he had someone at home. His mind automatically went to his mother — because that was who he had at home.

It took him a beat to understand the subtext — the lingering invitation that was hidden in her very uncharacteristic question about his personal life. He knew that she didn’t have someone at home either. He knew it because he knew nearly everything about her routine and her daily habits. He knew when she woke up, what state she woke up in, what she ate for her first meal of the day, with a cigarette, a habit she was always on the cusp of shaking off, but the stress of her life was always bringing it back. He knew every meeting she had and who she had them with. And he had stood silently outside of a bedroom door — doing his job — the sporadic times she did have sex. Usually with someone she did not know very well.

Brienne says, “What time is it?”

“Probably time to switch,” he says, taking the bottle back from her, placing it back on the small desk.

When Brienne is ready — though still a little distracted from his innocent shirt comment — he tries to give her a smile to generally convey his good intentions. It is weak, but he maintains it until it turns into a soundless grunt through his teeth, as he aims a right jab at her right hand, pulling it back, then cross, hook, bob, weave.

 

 

  
“You’re kind of avoiding her,” Brienne says conversationally, pressing his feet into the ground with her hands. He doesn’t need her to, but she offered. He compresses the muscles in his stomach and raises himself up — he can see her face better — and it’s stony and cloaked. All he sees is mild curiosity. Then he quickly lowers himself back down to the itchy ground.

It’s another five crunches before she speaks again. She says, “It’s actually really obvious. You’re definitely avoiding her.” And when he doesn’t say anything, she continues with, “Grey, what are we doing here? Why are you here? If not for her?”

“I’m not here for her,” he finally says, as he raises himself up again, keeping his voice low.

“Oh, my mistake,” Brienne says, matching his volume. “I forgot that you apparently love taking up lost causes and that you apparently like Jaime enough to follow him around as he slowly loses his mind.”

He collapses back on the ground, breathing hard, his skin warm and tacky.

“Look, you don’t have to babysit me all the time,” she says. “I’m not so sad and pathetic that I can’t hang out by myself for a few hours — or more than a few hours.”

He shakes his head, shaking off all of the uncomfortable implications, looking up at the ceiling.

He almost tells Brienne that it’s not at all that he thinks she’s sad and pathetic. He actually doesn’t think she’s either of those things at all — he stops short in his reassurances, because he thinks that if he pushes the point too hard, then it becomes this counterintuitive thing, only serving to affirm the very thing he doesn’t agree with. He also doesn’t understand her general impression of herself. If anyone is sad and pathetic, it is him. If anyone is hopeless and a lost cause, it is probably also just him. If anyone is undeserving, it is him.

 

 

  
Jaime bitterly tells them that his sister only let him go because she tasked him with the responsibility of bringing their last surviving child back to King’s Landing. He rubs his neck and he tells them that there’s a tracker installed underneath his skin, a way for his sister to keep tabs on him. She stated it was for his own safety. He wryly tells them it is what it is.

Brienne and Grey generally look at Jaime with dull eyes and then generally abstain from overly scrutinizing him, from telling him that he’s doing a very good job of approximating grief and righteousness. Missandei says that she can jam the signal of the tracker — if they need to. But there’s no reason to touch it for the time being.

He corners her while Jaime is in the shower room though, one floor down. It makes her heart start beating fast in a panic and her hand is shoved underneath her pillow, feeling for the knife there, when he quickly sneaks into the motel room, while she’s on the computer. He locks the door behind him. She pushes back her fear, when she realizes it’s him and not some strange man she doesn’t know. His back is pressed against the door and his expression is very grave — as he asks her if she really, truly, honestly, without a shadow of doubt _trust_ Jaime. Or could he be playing them?

Her pulse is still high and tight in her neck as she thinks about Jaime’s demeanor whenever he used to talk about his sister to her, describing Cersei as his hope — the gentle tone and the reverence in his voice latent. Missandei stiffly says, “Of course he could be playing us — to get his child back.”

Grey purses his lips into a line.

“But I trust him,” she says. She says this because of the way Jaime has grabbed onto her in his sleep — the way he had tried to kiss her — and the heavy and weary way his voice sounds now. These are not clear, measurable ways to gauge someone’s honesty and truthfulness — but she has always tended to operate based on her gut when it comes to these matters.

Grey looks unhappy. He flatly tells Missandei that he will kill Jaime if something bad happens to Brienne.

She takes a little bit of offense to that — because it’s a threat and it’s directed to her. She asks him, “Why are you here at all, then? With all of your doubts?”

He stares at her for a long, silent moment. And then he reluctantly admits, “He’s very convincing. And you believe in him.” After another moment, he says, “I’m sorry I scared you. I didn’t mean to.” She sees him cast his eyes to her pillow. He knows that she has a knife. He kind of winces. “I forget sometimes — how intense and crazy I come off sometimes.”

She doesn’t say much to that. She doesn’t know _what_ to say. He has kind of drawn out some sort of emotion from her. Her face gets hot, and she’s blinking back some tears.

He notices, because of course he does. He instantly cuts his eyes from her — directing it anywhere but her general direction. He’s looking off to the wall as he says, “If you ever want to learn new ways to use that — or if you want to talk — I know you have Jaime — but if you just feel like a change of pace or whatever — you should come to me.” He sighs. “I know I’m not very good at knowing what to say — but if you just want someone who will listen — fuck, that sounds so stupid. Oh my God, nevermind. I should just go.”

She still can’t say much. She just raises up the heels of her hand and presses them into her eyes, roughly wiping away the wetness.

 

 

  
Cersei is convinced that Tyrion has taken Tommen to Essos because there are few countries with extradition treaties on that continent. Sandor, Bronn, and Varys all departed from King’s Landing at around the same time that Tyrion and Tommen disappeared. Cersei’s own search for Tommen using the usual channels in Westeros have dried up. Jaime stiffly tells them that he was told his father suffered an illness while Jaime was away — the word ‘away’ drawing out this expression of disgust on his face. Reportedly — tumors in the brain. Jaime tells him that was the reason cited by Cersei, when she told Jaime to forgive their father for what he has done — he was actually losing himself and his mind when he sold Jaime. They just hadn’t known it at the time.

Missandei had logged into the hospital database and found that, indeed, there is a patient checked in under Tywin’s name, who has been in a persistent vegetative state for months.

Jaime tells her that he wants to know everything there is to know about the process of becoming a White Walker. She has told him her reach is limited. She only knows things that are written about — and there is no record of this.

It’s almost a rhetorical question over dinner, when he suddenly drops his fork and he says out loud, “Ramsay had no son that we knew of. How was he able to take over a child’s body? Is it not necessary to be a blood relative of the new body? Then, why aren’t White Walkers far more common?”

“The child looked exactly like Ramsay, though,” Brienne says. “The child looked like he could’ve been Ramsay’s son or his very young brother.”

“Where did that child come from?” Jaime says in agitation.

 

 

  
There are limited sleeping quarters on the boat. Naturally, the room they are all sharing is microscopic. They are all anxious for various obvious reasons. Naturally, it is so easy to get on each other’s nerves. Brienne is so uncomfortable with the forced intimacy, that she’d rather sit and stare at a wall than talk. Missandei is also very quiet — and it’s not until Jaime purposely nudges Missandei and makes some ill-timed, awful quip about how this particular room is giving him great memories of being shackled, shoved in a caged, and held in the forever-dark shipping container — and she snipes at him and tells him to shut the fuck up — that Grey is reminded, yet again, of all the things he doesn’t know about her. He feels like a loser — like he should have really pushed for a second room.

His mother used to touch his baby face and she used to murmur to him that he was so, so beautiful — like her. Her face used to screw up in disgust over it, before she gritted out that it’s a curse. She was ever-vigilant — this is probably part of why he grew up into such a paranoid person — her eyes narrow and condemning before she screamed at any of the other women in the brothel who edged too close to his general vicinity. She grabbed him and yanked him out of the hands of Leticia once, because he was sick with the flu and had a hard time breathing — so she was trying to help him blow his nose. His mom caught Leticia holding a tissue to his nose and his mom exploded in a show of very loud anger and grief — as she dragged him into their room and forced him to kneel in front of her as she hit him. It’s something that he understands — he understood it from the moment it happened. She used to always explain to him that it was love that made her do it. He had witnessed her fears, so he believed she was trying to protect him.

She used to anxiously shove him out of sight and coached him to be unfailingly quiet, whenever she was working — whenever she was having sex with sad men and angry men and cruel men for money. She kept repeating that he was too young and too beautiful — and she used to get so angry over it because she was so afraid of what might happen to him if some of her customers knew that he existed. She never told any of her men that she had a son. Some of them claimed to have fallen in love with her and they said they wanted to save her from her life. And she always turned them away and rejected their love.

Years later, when she was old and cleaning toilets for cash under the table, she’d mused to him that she could’ve married — that there were a lot of men who wanted to marry her. But she always had him to care for. He’s her number one. He’s her man.

And when she was at her angriest at him — in his youthful moments of defiance — when he wanted to do the things that normal kids did — she used to throw it back into his face. When she was angry, she used to shout at him that he looked exactly like his father, that monster.

Jaime’s words about his sister kind of echo in Grey’s head sometimes — it was what it was. His mother had been sick for most of his life. She did the very best she could.

 

 

  
She hops off the bed and tells them that she needs some air. She’s going stir-crazy in the tiny room. Jaime mutters that it’s so dark outside, and she sarcastically tells him that it’s nighttime — that’s sort of what nighttime is. It is dark.

He rolls his eyes at her and he tells her to give him a second while he puts on a jacket with his one fucking hand — then he’ll join her.

She flatly tells him she’ll be fine. She wants to be alone for a bit.

 

 

  
“Jesus, what part of ‘I want to be alone’ is so hard for you guys to understand?” she mutters, watching her breath materialize in a muted cloud in the yellow light of the top deck.

He shrugs — like he honestly does not even give a fuck — and he flips over to lean against the railing, his back to the water, his face oriented at hers. “Maybe I want to be alone up here, too. Maybe you’re the one who keeps intruding. Didn’t you know that I called dibs on this very railing this morning?”

She smiles a little bit. “I must’ve missed that.” She kind of pulls her jacket closer around her body — to keep in the heat — it’s honestly a lot colder than she anticipated it’d be, but she’s too proud to go back to the room to grab a blanket or a coat. She lightly sways with the rocking of the boat, her hips pressed against the damp, cold metal. She leans a little bit forward, trying to get a look at the inky black water below.

He gently puts his hand on her arm. He says, “Careful.”

“I’m not stupid enough to nose-dive to my death, man,” she says. “You seem to keep thinking that I am so helpless and useless.”

She hears his light scoff.

And then she says, “Sorry. I’m touchy about certain things.”

“I’m not saying — I don’t think you’re helpless,” he says. “This is just how this works — we all keep each other alive. I would tell anyone to be careful standing on this deck.”

She swallows. “So I’m not special?” She’s forcing herself to look into his expression — cast with harsh shadows because of the yellow light. She kind of straightens herself and takes a very tiny step toward him, just as he pushes himself off the railing so that he can face her.

“You’re very special,” he says, looking down at her, voice almost too quiet to hear over the sound of the waves. “You’re why I’m here.”

Oh God. She clenches her fist, to stop herself from grabbing onto him. She’s still not altogether sure she’s reading this shit correctly — if he means what she thinks he means. She doesn’t ask for clarification — whether he means ‘here,’ at this very moment on the deck, or if he means ‘here,’ about to unnecessarily risk his life for people he doesn’t know — she supposes it doesn’t matter enough presently.

It was so much easier when all she had to worry about was whether some guy could possibly like her back. With the stakes changed — now the stakes are more dire — her feelings for him sometimes feel entirely frivolous. Jaime has told her to shut down her brain — he told her that life is already shitty and bleak and horrible enough. If there is a chance for a little reprieve, if there’s just a chance for a moment of happiness, she should just take it and savor it because it’s more than what some of them will ever get. Jaime’s philosophizing has changed in tone, ever since he saw his sister again.

She’s still too scared. So she breaks the spell and the tension by coughing lightly, by roughly smearing her hand down her face and muttering that she’s getting sleepy. She’s going to go back down to the room. 

 

 

 


	18. eighteen

 

 

He hands over the money and inquires about paperwork — as the manager semi-correctly identifies Grey as a Westerner, with his overt concern for paper and bloated procedure and mockingly tells him to just learn to trust people at their word sometimes. After all, Grey will be the one taking the car off of the lot. In Low Valyrian, the manager — Joseph or Yussef — tells Grey that he is in a better position to really fuck them over — by stealing their car. But they trust Grey will bring it back.

The impromptu lecture irritates him as it simultaneously makes him feel a little sheepish.

Leaving the office, he clears his throat and stretches the cords in his neck from side to side as he squints ahead into the near-white sunlight. Skyscrapers far off in the distance break the skyline. It serves to remind him that this continent is fucking huge. And it is all a fucking daunting fool’s errand.

He crosses his arms, and he mutters to Brienne that it’s hard for sheep like them to be without a proper shepherd. It’s an ongoing and grim joke of theirs — this acknowledgement of their stations in life — of perhaps even their personalities. He has told her that he likes to only lead on a small scale — a modest scale — underneath the auspices of some grand visionary with slight sociopathic tendencies. His limitation is that he is sorely lacking in conviction sometimes.

She has jokingly told him that she personally prefers to serve under benevolent blue bloods with a strong sense of righteousness — that jives with what she’s all about — blue bloods with questionable decision-making abilities sometimes. She has told him that she can only handle the supervision of ten, at most a dozen people. After that — well, bureaucracy and politics aren’t her strong suit — as people have repeatedly said to her reportedly dull-ass face.

Grey snaps the hot trunk of the car closed, after depositing the last of their bags into it. He tosses her the car keys, which she catches with one hand. She’s a good driver, and he doesn’t mind being driven.

“Welcome to the haystack,” she mutters, before grabbing the hot frame of the car and swinging her long body into the driver’s seat.

She immediately breaks out into a wet sweat — she also keeps reminding him she’s not like him — she’s not made for this sort of climate. It’s the closest she can ever get to awkwardly acknowledging their racial difference. And she laughs at herself as he shuts the passenger side door.

“My hands are already slippery,” she tells him, sliding her palms lightly over the ripples of the steering wheel.

He laughs.

 

  
Jaime’s general limited insight on his brother is a source of frustration for all of them. The dataset that she is working with — plus equipment and infrastructure limitations — makes margins of error greater and greater, so much that it all starts to dwell in inexact areas she’s uncomfortable with.

She has gathered that this is an area that Jaime is very comfortable with — the gray areas in life, the unpredictable nature of people. He has ironically murmured to her that in another life — a past life — he was known for his high EQ — this ability to read people and to understand people.

She has flatly told him that in that previous life, they wouldn’t have been friends — for various reasons, actually. But mostly because she remembers him from before and he was obnoxious.

There are four main ports that Tyrion and Tommen could have landed in on the west coast of Essos. Of course, three are large international hubs with transcontinental flights coming in and out. Pentos is the closest and most direct city to land in coming from King’s Landing and also the most likely port that Tyrion and Tommen passed through, given the time frame that they left King’s Landing. It’s near-impossible to get on a pricey plane without paperwork and getting scanned — and she knows for a fact — because she hacked into flight records — that neither were scanned at the airport in King’s Landing, so they must’ve boarded a ship — illegally at that — which has become common practice in the last few years.

Cargo ships that illegally transport passengers who pay a hefty price to cross the ocean without a paper trail has experienced a boom after the first flood of Walkers into Westeros. It’s advantageous for Reds and Blues, those that can easily pass for human, to be able to pass through kingdoms without having to be scanned — and scanning is far less common in Essos. It’s a good hiding place for those who don’t want to be found.

She was only about 70 percent sure that Tyrion and Tommen passed through Pentos, but that was enough for Grey to buy three illegal tickets for them.

  

  
He doesn’t like it, but he does acknowledge that she has a point. He has been handling her too carefully. For this reason, he resists raising too much of a stink when she makes another reasonable point — between the four of them, only two of them have the right complexion and the required language skills to actually gather information on foot. Brienne and Jaime — with their respective paleness and blondness and brash monolingualism utterly stick out like sore thumbs.

He still raises a little bit of a stink though. Of course he does. He can’t help it. “Always keep the line open, okay?” he says. “I know Brienne can’t understand most of what you’re saying, but she can still pick out distress.”

“Right,” Missandei says impatiently, pushing her curly hair over her ear, covering the earpiece better. “Anything else?”

And he can detect her growing annoyance with him tightening and growing tauter. “If something doesn’t feel right — if you feel uncomfortable — there’s no shame in walking out, okay? And try not to sit down in any place. Definitely do not eat or drink anything that is given to you —”

 _“Right,”_ she says, shrugging out of her jacket, laying it on the back of a chair. “Because it’s a common habit to poison strangers here. Just for fun. And it’s also a tendency of mine, to shove foreign matter into my body without a second thought.”

“Missandei —”

She sucks in a long breath and clasps her hands together on top of her head, staring at him with her eyes naked with frustration. “God, was I this annoying back in the day? Did I do _this_ to you?”

He immediately knows exactly what she is referring to. She’s referring to all of the times she was chatter in his ear — all the times she used to rattle off protocol to him whenever he made her nervous with his improvisations — all the times she tried to backseat drive him.

He doesn’t answer her directly. Instead, his eyes scan her. They go from where her hands are clasped on top of her hair to that face that he can’t erase from his brain — down her torso, to her bare shoulders, her chest, her cleavage, her breasts, her tight tank top and the strip of skin that shows between the waistband of her jeans and the tight tank top. And then he angrily says, “Should you go out wearing what you are wearing?”

“Aw, shit!” Jaime, who had been blessedly quiet up until now, whispers in awe. “Oh no you did not just say that! Punch him, Missy!”

 

  
Information gathering is largely a boring and nerdy activity with a fair bit of down time as she rides buses and subways or walks from place to place, knocking on doors to ask questions of shop owners, any proprietors that deal with transportation because it’s very unlikely that Tyrion and Tommen left Pentos on an airplane. She and Grey are canvassing separate districts close to the busy city center — on a hunch that Tyrion and Tommen left Pentos in a rush. Brienne has been hovering close by — within a mile — parked in the sweltering car with Jaime. They have called it insurance. Missandei knows that Brienne is the muscle — her very own bodyguard. There were jokes about how the lines have been drawn down gender, but truly, she knows that Grey trusts Brienne’s ability to protect her more than he trusts Jaime. He’s not at all wrong about that — Jaime, underweight and without a hand is far less imposing than a healthy, non-disabled Jaime — a fact that never ceases to send Jaime into a barely contained rage.

“Let me guess,” Brienne’s husky voice says in her ear. “He said that he does not remember seeing a dwarf with a little blond boy around these parts.”

Missandei lightly chuckles. “You are picking up Low Valyrian so fast,” she says softly.

“I’ll be fluent any day now,” Brienne says dryly. “Just, any day now.”

  
  
  
After five hours, her feet are aching and her body is greasy from sweat. She breathes heavily as she pushes her body up the flight of uneven stone steps, pressing her hand against the dusty clay brick wall to keep her balance. She mutters to Brienne that back in the day, she used to be really into her Fitbit and days like these — the days of constant walking — used to be stuff that filled her with glee — really gave her a sense of accomplishment. That was how hip and happening her life was.

“You’re breathing pretty hard,” Brienne says mildly — erasing the concern from her voice.

“I’m pretty out of shape,” Missandei admits. She neglects to tell Brienne that her that it’s probably due to months of malnourishment — the effects of which seem to be difficult to recover from. She gets dizzy and tired when she eats too much. She neglects to tell Brienne that she’s still recovering from being wheelchair bound. After all, it’s something they both already know.

“We’ll figure out a way to get some extra cardio in you,” Brienne says, voice lifting up into forced cheer. “You’ll be back to snuff soon. Me and Grey are great at fitting in workouts in motel rooms.”

“Yeah?”

There is a lengthy pause on the other end. And then Brienne clears her throat and changes the subject. “Are you going to be hungry soon?”

 

 

The first day is a wash. Nothing comes of it — and while they all expected as much — they still all wash up for dinner with a certain fatalism and pessimism. She, in particular, is exhausted and is tempted to bow out of dinner so that she can just go to bed early. She doesn’t because she doesn’t want him to know how wiped she is from a day of very moderate walking. She doesn’t want to look at his face — see his patronizing concern. She probably pushed herself a few hours beyond her normal breaking point because of pride.

“You’re limping,” he says, frowning, head tilting to the side, staring at her legs.

“What?” she says. “No, I’m not.”

He reaches out and gestures to her right side — there’s a blister on the heel of her foot, where her shoe had rubbed her skin raw — but he doesn’t know that. He says, “You’re favoring that side.”

She crosses her arms over her chest. “Cool party trick, bro,” she says, unable to stop the sarcasm from dripping. “Does that trick bring all the girls to the yard?”

He shrugs, mirroring her, crossing his arms too. “Are all of your burns so incredibly outdated?”

“I didn’t have that much time to keep up with pop-culture,” she says dully. “On account of being locked in a cage like a pet.”

“Please, you weren’t locked in a cage since fifteen years ago.”

That yanks a laugh out of her — unexpectedly and loudly — and it’s such a surprise that her hand immediately flies to her mouth and her eyes go wide as she stares at him, as she sees his mouth slowly curve into a quiet, knowing smile.

He shakes his head, maintaining the smile. “Look, I’m not on your case because it’s fun for me to be a pain in your ass. I’m not trying to undermine how — how strong you are.” He pauses, expelling out a breath to relieve the awkward tension. “We’re a team. We’re all partners in this. I need to know how you’re actually doing.” He reaches up and curls his hand over the back of his neck, rubbing it roughly. “I’m real fucking tired, man. Talking to people isn’t my forte. I feel like I need to hibernate for a week to get over how much talking I had to do today. Not to mention — the fucking pain of having Jaime in my ear. That was rough. Dude never shuts up. It made me miss the days when you were in my head like that.”

She’s beaming at him. She can’t even stop herself. She can’t even pull her freaking eyes off of him, standing there all bashful and just breaking her heart with his adorable shyness.

She takes a step forward — a modest one that maintains their respective personal spaces, but one that is still meaningful, nonetheless. She reaches her hand up to place it against the back of his warm neck, displacing his hand, which silently falls back down to his side.

“I used to have the biggest crush on you,” she confesses, lightly pressing her fingers into his neck as her insides generally just spaz the fuck out. A panicked and uncomfortable feeling of uncertainty floods through her. But she supposes that these sorts of moments — this kind of declaration — has to be earned.

“Yeah?” he says.

“Did you know?”

He purses his lips as he thinks about it for a second. “Not right away,” he admits. “It took a while for it to sink in.”

“And when it did,” she says lightly, “you didn’t do anything about it.”

He swallows. She can see the skin against his jaw tick as he clenches his teeth down. And then he says, “You _know_ how I feel about you.”

Her free hand balls up into a fist. She lightly knocks it against the center of his chest as her heart just throbs. She says, “Now I do.”

 

  
He’s woefully under-experienced in this one area of life. He grew up fearful of girls in the way that girls have been taught to be fearful of men. That was something his mother instilled in him — in a purposeful and also in an inadvertent way. In middle school, at the onset of puberty and of those painful sort of experiences — one of his classmates got fed up with his obtuseness — he didn’t pick up any of her subtle hints — that she grabbed him by the shirt next to his locker and shocked him with her shiny eyes. She was almost crying when she asked him why he wouldn’t ask her to go to the winter formal with him. Another way he’s been trained is that he’s been conditioned to be very easily influenced by tears of an anguished female. So he agreed to take her to the dance.

The way his mother went ballistic over the development ended up being one of the defining moments of his life. He remembers how she was inconsolable. He remembers her loud crying and her accusations — that after she gave up her entire life for him, he was paying her back by abandoning her for someone else.

That was a statement that ended up hurting him deeply. It cut through him. It would be the thing that ruined the very first — probably technically the very last date he ever went on.

He thought college would be a fresh start. But then a persistent cough and a fever got in the way. Actually, a diagnosis got in the way. He sat in the waiting room of a doctor’s office with his hands tingling and his face utterly numb — as he wondered if he was going to die young, too.

He has these memories of his ailing mother touching his face — telling him that he was too beautiful — telling him that he was her man and that he was everything she had, the only real thing she ever had. He remembers telling himself that he owed her everything. He owed her his life. So he gave her his life.

He knows that she would not approve. If she were still alive, she would not like Missandei. She would focus on every little flaw and inflate it big until he couldn’t take it anymore, until he couldn’t unsee the flaws. Perhaps — this is why he’s been particularly hard on Missandei — he’s been awful to her and she doesn’t deserve any of it — but perhaps it’s all he can do, to remember his mother and to honor her. He knows it isn’t right. It’s actually a little bit sick, just like their relationship was a little bit off. But certain things are hard-coded and ingrained. He may not have the capacity to do this — to be normal.

 

 

Jaime holds his fork in his mouth, between his teeth, as he tears apart the hot chicken on his plate with his fingers, hissing whenever he hits a particularly steamy bit. He has adapted these endearing new ways of coping — he generally avoids asking for help, naturally. After he’s done, he smears his greasy fingers on a paper napkin and transfers his fork back to his left hand.

“God, I’m so jetlagged,” Brienne mutters into her cup of soup. “Just when I get used to a place, we end up moving again and then I have a new timezone to adjust to.”

“Gotta get used to the jet-setting lifestyle, babe,” Jaime says, shoving a large piece of chicken into his mouth. “If you’re going to hang with me.”

“Could you not?” Brienne says to him. “I’m not into banter, and I’m not fast with quips. And can you just call me by my damn name?”

“Oh, okay, Brienne,” Jaime says mildly. “So we’ll just sit here and talk about how sleepy we are then.”

 

 

 


	19. nineteen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> :) I love Grey in this chapter so much it's ridic.

 

 

 

She has to reach over him to grab her computer, inadvertently brushing him with her sleeve. He jolts in place like he got burned. He scrambles backward on the bed to give her room. She kind of laughs to herself at that — at him and his skittishness. She largely pretends that no one else is in the room — that Jaime’s inquisitive gaze isn’t boring a hole into the back of her head.

  
So Grey didn’t exactly give her some romantic declaration of undying love, and she didn’t exactly fall into his arms over what he _did_ give her. They still have very minimal body contact — he still flinched this morning when she accidentally bumped her hand against his, in her haste to get to the bread.

  
She supposes that she wouldn’t even know what to do — had she gotten that kind of expressed devotion from him.

  
But she does find that this greater transparency between them settles her restless brain a lot. She finds that there is a lot less shame and a lot less embarrassment — over the way her eyes blatantly follow him around sometimes. There is no rulebook for this kind of situation. There is so much outside of this that requires their focus right now.

 

 

 

  
“So do you want me to give you guys the room? I can bunk down with Brienne tonight,” Jaime drawls into her ear as he bypasses the bags on the floor and hops onto the queen-sized bed with a thump. “God, how did she get so lucky?”

  
Missandei doesn’t know how to answer him, so she settles on matching him, on being a dick. “Oh, so you decided general harassment isn’t enough, you have to up the ante to sexual harassment?”

  
His grin widens. “God, you’re so sensitive right now. I fucking _love it.”_

 

 

  
He’s probably in love with her. He can tick off all of the things that point to it. Yes, he’d die for her — though in a broad sense, he would die for a lot of people. He is trained to sacrifice for so-called greater goods at the altar of ideals and people who are far more important than he is. But what he means is that he’d also die for her in a personal way, and that must count as love.

  
His mind keeps torturing his heart by wandering backwards. He thinks back to his planned rebellion against his dying mother. He was younger then, and he would’ve pretended to be normal and would’ve hidden Missandei from his mom for a while — until it was impossible to hide her. Then, he would’ve taken a stand and told his mother that he was making a choice — one that she was probably not happy with — but he was cautiously being optimistic about his life for once. And then Missandei would’ve been just blindsided — when the veil cloaking his fucking batshit life was lifted and she saw him for the freakshow that he actually is. And then she’d leave.

  
Even his wildest fantasies end with him disgusting her and scaring her off — they still end with her leaving in a way that is entirely blameless and justified.

  
He thinks that it’s likely that he’s in love with her because it feels like a sickness — the way he can’t stop himself from being in her vicinity, the way he knows he’s no good for her — and yet — he can’t even fucking stop himself from being no good because his willpower is _that_ weak. He keeps desperately lying to himself. He keeps telling himself that he has to stay around because he is useful to her. He tells himself that all he really wants to do is be helpful to her.

  
It’s apparent to him that the way he feels about her is not platonic. His shitty body responds to the sight of her — all the time. He wants to reach out to her — all the time. He is pretty sure he wants to fuck her real badly. And that is terrible. He’s been conditioned to feel like shit about it — to feel this extreme guilt and fear over his maleness. He hates to place so much responsibility at his dead mother’s feet — she is _not_ the only reason he is the way he is, and he knows that she loved him deeply and she did the very best she could. She was just a person who was doled an oppressive life of extreme violence and unfairness.

  
It’s hard to scrub his mind of the image of his mom’s angry despair, as she shouted and told him all of the evil things about men — lacking in awareness, sometimes, that he represented all of the things she really _hated_ in life — things that he has seen proven true over the years. They kill. They rape. They take. They hurt. And they do it without any feeling. They do it all with such superiority and such disdain.

  
She used to sob and clutch onto him. He never knew how to console her. She used to tell him that he was the only good thing in her life. And then her expression would collapse when she looked at his face — when she suddenly remembered who he looked like.

  
Best case scenario is that he tells Missandei this awful secret — that he probably loves her. Best case scenario is that she accepts this fact and fools herself into believing she feels the same thing for him — based on all the absence of information. And it will probably be okay for a while — maybe a month at the longest. But then she’d pick up that there is something off about him — he can’t sustain the illusion for that long. He knows this because he lived it. He lived with a terribly wounded woman who was not always very perceptive, but she always managed to pick out his limitations in her most insane moments anyway. He is very transparent in his failures.

  
And so Missandei will find out that he is not who she thinks he is — then what? Well, the disappointment will settle in. That will give way to bitterness — she will be mad that he lied to her by misrepresenting himself. And then she will come to hate him. And then they will be fucking stuck together, with no easy escape — unless he wants to be a fucking coward and just leave them all to die because his ego and his heart got broken.

 

 

 

  
Jaime stretches widely, groaning as the muscles in his arms pull. “Another day, another dollar,” he murmurs.

  
They are tackling the outer districts today. As with a lot of large cities, the ethnic-immigrant populations of Pentos got pushed out to the perimeter of the city, edged out by rising cost of living and vague politics that support housing discrimination, probably. In the outer districts, Walkers who have defected from Westeros live among people — humans — at times indistinguishable from one another. With that came a host of predictable and not-so-predictable issues. The area has suffered from an increase in crime. And it has suffered a drop in birth rates.

  
Grey is on edge — his mood is dark and he is relentlessly quizzing her on protocol. The answer to all of his questions is generally to get the fuck out of scary situations as fast as possible. The answer to all of his questions is generally to not engage. The answer to all of his questions is to call for help — and he keeps reminding her of what an utter liability she in these kind of moments. But Jaime and Brienne’s Valyrian isn’t worth shit and no one will tell the truth to people so pale. So they are making do.

  
She is on edge, too. The energy has been tense and somber.

 

 

 

  
“So what happened with Missy the other night?” Jaime says, chirping in his ear.

  
He doesn’t answer. Because Jaime is a fucking dumbass. The sign of the moped rental place says they are closed for lunch. He makes a mental note to circle back in an hour.

  
“If you’re not going to tell me, I’m just going to make shit up about it. Let’s see — she came back to the room all flushed and sweaty and weird. So I’m guessing my bitch got a little taste of your uptight ass.”

  
“Don’t fucking talk about her like that,” he growls.

  
He hears Jaime’s malicious laugh. He hears Jaime say, “You are _too_ easy, sometimes.”

 

 

  
The older parts of this city were ill-planned. As the population grew, the buildings expanded in erratic and convoluted ways. Structures got built on top of structures, and it’s not uncommon to have to navigate through a labyrinth of doors and corridors to find the right place.

  
There’s the watery tittering from a running water fountain next to a large communal wood table. It looks like a family room more than it looks like a business. She was told by a young boy to wait as he went and fetched his uncle.

 

 

 

  
Jaime is quiet in his ear as Grey talks to the shop owner, as the shop owner tells him that she’d remember a foreign dwarf and a foreign child if she came across either — both sights are rare in these parts as this is not especially a tourist destination. She does tell him that there was a foreign woman that passed by — with a head covering as to not be detected. The shop owner tells him that she is perceptive, so she did notice that the woman was foreign. Is he looking for a woman, by chance?

  
She stares at him inquisitively, perhaps wondering if he is there trying to hunt down a runaway bride — a lost wife. The fact that she also sees him as foreign is something that irks him — he doesn’t think he’s any more Western than she is, but she picked him out and dressed him down on the spot. Also, men searching for lost women in this area of the world isn’t that much of a novelty.

  
He tells her that he is not looking for a woman. He really is looking for a small man and a child — perhaps they could have been mistaken as two children?

  
She shakes her head, tells him no. She hasn’t seen such people. She grins and she tells him who he should talk to — he should talk to Fairaz, the mechanic down the avenue. She tells him Fairaz knows these things, as she rubs the fingers of her right hand together.

  
He presses a bill into her itchy fingers, and he thanks her. Being led on an aimless goose chase like this also isn’t abnormal.

  
“So what is your fucking deal, man? I would ask if it’s a needle dick issue, but you and I are close enough to where I have seen your junk — and it looks totally normal, man. Are you just not into women?”

  
For a microsecond, he had forgotten Jaime was there. He runs his wrist over his damp forehead as he steps back out into the hot sun.

  
“Because if that’s your deal, you should really be straight with her.”

  
“Pun,” Grey mutters.

  
“Whoa!” Jaime’s laughing voice perks up in his ear. “Purely accidental! God, I am even fucking hilarious when I’m not even trying.”

 

 

 

  
She can feel them — a group of men — do a doubletake as she crosses the street. As she quickens her pace, she can hear them call out to her — in broken Common Tongue — in a mutilated accent. They are telling her to stop for a moment so they can talk to her.

  
She touches her ear — just an unconscious, comforting gesture. Brienne can hear her no matter way. “Hey —”

  
“What’s going on?” Brienne’s voice is tight and tense.

  
“I’m being followed.”

  
“How many?”

  
“Four. I think.”

  
“Walk back to the car right now. Do you remember how to get back here?”

  
“Yes. I think so.”

  
She breaks out into hot sweat when a hand jerks her elbow backwards.

 

 

 

  
The chatter in his ear suddenly stops — Jaime stops talking mid sentence and goes silent, causing Grey to go rigid where he is at — on a street corner where five roads intersect. He strains to hear Jaime’s faraway, muffled conversation with Brienne as he is fucking just sure that his _worst fucking nightmare_ has come to life.

  
“What’s going on?” he says, modulating his voice.

  
“Brienne is going to get her right now.”

  
“Where is _she?”_ he pushes out. She is somewhere in the next district over. She is, at most, three miles away. She could be as close as half a mile. If she followed the route according to the estimated schedule, she should be — and then he sharply inhales and he corrects himself. He says, “No. Don’t tell me.”

  
“I wasn’t going to,” Jaime says softly.

  
His palm slams into a metal pole propping up a sign. The motion startles a bunch of diners eating lunch outdoors. He hates this — he fucking _hates_ this. He knew that this would happen, and this was why he didn’t want to fucking do it like this! This is his fucking fault. This is all his fault. He is going to fucking _kill_ if —

  
“It’ll be okay,” Jaime says. “This is Missandei we’re talking about here, you know? I’ll be okay. She’ll be okay. You’ll see her soon, okay?”

 

 

 

 

  
Grey sighs. “I’m heading to the next point. Keep talking to me, please.”

  
“How old were you, when you moved to King’s Landing?”

  
“Six or seven.”

  
“Was it hard to adjust? What was school like?”

  
“I was held back a grade and started in kindergarten even though I was older than my classmates. I couldn’t speak the Common Tongue, and I was quiet. Everyone thought I was slow and dimwitted, so they held me back a grade.”

  
“You graduated a year early though.”

  
“How do you know that?”

  
“I stalked you on the internet, once upon a time.”

  
“Oh.”

  
“You graduated a year early?”

  
“Later, I skipped two grades.”

  
“Ah, so they discovered you weren’t retarded. Just foreign. What was your first sexual experience like?”

  
“Pass. I do not want to talk about that.”

  
“Oh, that juicy, huh?”

  
“What was _your_ first sexual experience like?”

  
“Oh. Touche. Why did you join the military?”

  
“Health benefits. Money. My mom got sick. And I also wanted to get away from her for a while.”

 

 

 

 

  
He blocks her from leaving with his hand pressed against the wall. In Low Valyrian, after all of the catcalls he knows in the Common Tongue have no effect, he asks her what’s her name, why she is in a hurry, where she is from, where she is staying, and if he can talk to her for a moment. She looks beyond him and sees his friends loitering around, listening avidly — laughing.

  
She feels like she wants to stress-cry. Or rage-cry. She doesn’t want to touch him to push him out of the way because he is so fucking disgusting to her, so she silently crosses her arms over her chest — she shouldn’t have worn this fucking shirt — and ducks underneath his arm. She remembers rule number one — which is to get the fuck out of this kind of situation as fast as possible, without escalating it.

  
But — she flips out when he gropes her to stop her from leaving — when he grabs at her chest and her ass. Her mind blanks out to red because she doesn’t understand why men think they are owed this and _entitled_ to this — and she lands a satisfying slap right across his face.

  
Then they start screaming in the middle of the street at each other. It draws an audience — and she knows that in lieu of rule number one — rule number two is be loud and to get the attention of every fucking person. They never talked about this — she and Grey — it was entirely too — horrible — unromantic — just awful to talk about — of course it never came up in this specific way — but right now she doesn’t even give a fuck because — because what she really _wants_ is for _everyone_ to witness this _fucking injustice._ She wants — she wants strangers to know that these are despicable _pigs_ — and she’s viciously shouting at them, because she fucking needs for them to know who they are — and that worthless shit’s pathetic friends hold him back as he lunges at her, as he calls her an ugly dirty whore a bunch of times and tries to spit at her. She is fucking _daring_ him to hit her, and she wishes he would. She really just wishes he really would because then it would be _another reason._ She fucking wishes he would. She taunts him and she tells him to try _it_ and to see what will happen to him after he does it. She wants them all to fucking know what has _happened_ to her, as she bends down and blindly grabs at rocks — at these smooth egg-sized stones littering the ground — and starts angrily throwing the rocks. They are calling her a crazy Black bitch now, and she is screaming it back at them — that yes, she is a crazy fucking Black _bitch._

  
Her eyes are stinging so much that she never sees if any of the rocks land. She runs out of rocks.

  
And then it’s quiet — they are gone.

  
And she snatches her dirty hand away when she feels someone touch it — she recoils.

  
The she blinks — and then she sees the small crowd of men and women who have gathered around her — she sees their inquisitive sympathy.

  
The woman tries to grab her hand again — this time, succeeding. She sees scar tissue. She is asked if she is okay.

  
Her heart is pounding. Adrenaline is just making her pulse go nuts. She sees Brienne — for the first time — hovering right next to her.

  
Brienne clears her throat. “Tell him she’s perfectly okay,” Brienne says softly into the air — seemingly to no one.

 

 

  
“I know that was traumatic,” Brienne says, kind of skipping next to Missandei as they walk quickly back to the car. “But can I say — that was fucking amazing. You’re amazing.”

  
Missandei starts laughing — she knows it’s a mistake — because she immediately transitions into sobbing. It feels like a release of such pent up and horrible emotion that was being held at bay by anger. She feels Brienne’s arm come around her shoulders, squeezing her tightly as she shakes.

 

 

 

  
“He wants to talk to you,” Brienne says, smiling kindly and handing her earpiece back to her.

  
“Oh, awesome,” Missandei says, as Jaime’s hand reassuringly pats her on the back. “I hope he chews me out for, uh, well, I can’t always predict the reasons he has for chewing me out.” Missy pops the piece in. “Hey,” she says.

  
The first thing he says is, “I’m not going to chew you out.”

  
The sound of his voice — anxious as it is — makes her want to cry again because she feels such relief in hearing it. “Hey,” she says again, her voice thickening. “Will you just cut the day an hour short and just come back to me?”

  
“Yeah,” he says.

 

 

 

  
There is a lot of time for his anxiety and his nervousness and his awkwardness to build, as he trudges back to the car — as he watches Jaime, Brienne, and Missandei watch him. The panic has subsided, and so has some of the relief. The sense of dread builds, as his sweaty body gets within arm’s reach of her.

  
She grabs for him — he grabs for her — who starts it first, he doesn’t know — but his entire body just throbs everywhere she’s touching him — the world is spinning — he can’t even think. She whimpers as he holds onto her tightly, as he presses her against the cushions in the back seat and touches her body to make sure she’s okay. He _knows_ that he loves her.

 

 

 

  
“Guys, guys!” He feels Jaime swatting at his back. “Stop! You guys are not alone. Jesus. You’re embarrassing Brienne!”

  
It feels like cold water is thrown in his face. He didn’t even think any of it was sexual — he was just so fucking relieved to see her in one piece — which is why it feels especially excruciating and shameful — as they disentangle their limbs and create enough space between their bodies — that his erection is the fucking awkward thing filling the sudden awkwardness in the back seat. His face burns. She can see _it._ She actually is looking right at _it._ And his self-loathing and Jaime’s well-timed slap on the ass sends it off to a quick and quiet death.

  
He flips over and lands in the seat next to her, avoiding eye contact, scratching his blunt nails down his jean-clad legs.

  
“What a fucking day!” Jaime says, laughing, blithely clueless in the front seat as Brienne starts the car — as Missandei shuts her door. “What a fucking rollercoaster. You gave us all such a fucking panic attack, Missy! God, I’m so relieved everyone’s okay.” He looks over at Brienne, a fond expression on his face. “Even you, man. For a few minutes, I was also pretty worried about you, dude.”

  
“That’s weird,” she mutters, addressing Jaime, putting the car in reverse, pivoting around and bracing her hand against the back of Jaime’s headrest so she can see out the back window. Her face is flushed red. “I cannot really say the same about you. _Dude.”_

 

 

 

 


	20. twenty

 

 

 

He miserably buries himself in paper when they get back to the motel. There’s only one computer and it belongs to Missandei, so he has to write out his reports long-hand. It’s fucking annoying because his handwriting is terrible and he hates looking at it. He makes all of them write reports — even Jaime and Brienne — Jaime hates it. Sometimes he has to make Jaime dictate the report out loud — and Grey records it down on paper because Jaime is just sometimes an insufferable prick.

  
It’s an odd habit of his that he had forgotten existed until he had to start being around people again. His issue is that he cannot lie down before anyone else. And he can’t be lying down when people are upright. It is a wholly uncomfortable endeavor. Thus, he tends to go to sleep after everyone, and he tends to wake up before everyone.

  
Brienne stiffly navigates around the room. He gives her his back — and he can hear her rustling around — as she quickly changes her clothes behind him.

  
“I’m beat,” she says softly.

  
He immediately reaches out and snaps off the desk lamp. He was almost done with his report anyway. He doesn’t know if his mood has bled into hers or if he has done something to make her upset or uncomfortable with him or if it is completely unrelated to him. His issue is his inability to ask — sometimes his inability to apologize.

  
“You didn’t have to do that,” she says. “I can sleep with the light on.”

  
“No,” he says quickly. “It’s okay.”

 

 

 

  
The room is dark when she enters it — she can hear his deep breathing — and she quickly undresses, pulling off her bra through the arm holes of her tank, stepping out of her pants and shoes, yanking off her socks.

  
He speaks when her hand depresses the bed. “I was going to make a joke about how you better not crush my pelvis under your massive weight — but then I realized that you are not Brienne.”

  
“Nope,” she says, collapsing into the open spot next to Jaime. “And you’re horrible. Why would you say that to her?”

  
He laughs quietly, shifting to the side a little to accommodate her. “I don’t know,” he says softly, still laughing a little. He picks up the edge of the blanket and pulls it over Missandei’s shoulders. “I just — I just look at her, and I’m just compelled to say these really awful things to her.”

  
“It’s juvenile.”

  
“I never said it was mature.”

  
She sighs and shakes her head in the dark, rustling the pillow. She reaches out and searches for him — touching his stubbly chin with her hand before she smooths her palm over his chest, searching for his heartbeat. It’s so comparatively easy — with Jaime. She whispers to him, “I need a cuddle buddy.”

  
He immediately rolls onto his back, opening his right arm to her.

 

 

 

  
In the dark, in bed, Jaime tells her that he’s going to tell her a secret. He tells her that he was watching her carefully — when she was walking back to the car with Brienne, the way she had broken down and cried. He kind of is a perpetual interloper in that way — he just couldn’t tear his eyes off of her and her grief. And he remembers thinking that it was something so surprising to him, to be witnessing such naked pain. He supposes that he takes it for granted sometimes, these flattering assumptions he has made about her. He thinks that part of it is because he truly has come to love her. She is special to him. The other part of it is that he is always urgently trying to keep his own guilt at bay.

  
He tells her that he knows it’s actually all his fault. He knows that he is the reason — that what happened to her — happened to her. He tells her he can’t even fucking put a name to it, because it is so fucking awful, and he is such a fucking coward. He tells her that she is so good and he is so fucking rotten inside. He tells her he’s sorry she became attached to him.

  
“Stop,” she says into the dark. She is sweating in his arms.

  
“You need to hear this,” he says. “From me.”

  
“I really don’t. I don’t want to deal with your guilt on top of all the other things that I’m dealing with, in my head. Even if you weren’t around, Kraznys would have raped anyway. He would have found other ways to manipulate or to force. Because men like that always find a way. They only stop when they are dead."

  
She says, “I could be dead right now, without you — because you wouldn’t have been around to plead with me to live. I told you this already before — when everything was so much more horrible. I'm not some victim.  Don’t treat me like a victim. Your guilt takes away from my agency."

  
She says, “You know what happened to you — and your hand?”

  
He is silent. And she thinks about how Jaime got his hand taken away. And she thinks that what was taken from her is not so tangible or physical. And she thinks about the ways in which people qualify loss, how they all weigh loss differently.

  
“You told me that you tried to save a woman’s virtue. And you lost your hand for it. Do you blame her for the loss of your hand? Is it her fault you lost your hand?”

  
She answers for him. She says, “No. It’s not her fault. It would never occur to you to blame her. You blame yourself before you would think to blame her. The story goes that she was a victim and you were trying to save her — because you are a hero and that is what people like you do. And I am here telling you that I am no different than you are — other than the entire world telling me I’m fucking crazy all the time — for believing that I’m no different than you are.”

 

 

 

  
The next morning, she wakes up and just about gets her head bitten off by the ornery object of her affection. He gets on her case about wanting to get back on the streets so soon after her “ordeal.” The way he phrases it makes her want to bash his beautiful fucking face in. His cranky mood results in a whole bunch of infighting — Jaime is still sore and tender from their heavy conversation the night before — from the ways that she condemned him for and the things she accurately accused him of — that he is extra cognizant and quick to snap at Grey and tell him to get the fuck off his high horse — because Missandei doesn’t need his permission to do her fucking job.

  
Jaime is still constantly in the mode of protecting her — but she will give him points for his misguided efforts. His heart is in the right place.

  
As for Grey — she knows that he is upset or pissed or embarrassed over a simple hug and a not-so-simple body response — for reasons she doesn’t understand because he is sometimes one hot mess and also not at all communicative. And she is exhausted enough that she just doesn’t care. She’s not going to chase him around trying to force him to explain just exactly why his penis or his attraction to her is just this horrible, end-of-the-world thing.

 

 

 

  
Casual female nudity was a common sight in the brothel — the sight of different skin colors in various states of undress is a foggy slideshow that flickers in and out of his memory. He was very young when he lived there.

  
He hasn’t had much reason to think very deeply about things — he’s not a very complicated person with these complicated yearnings and dreams — but lately, he’s been thinking a lot about all the ways in which his early life experiences have imprinted on him — in all of these unexpected and small, but still profound, ways.

  
The days have become repetitive. They get up. They wash themselves. They eat breakfast. Then they go out.

  
Missandei is chewing on some bread next to him in silence. He’s stirring these bitter leaves into his hot water — his stomach has been a little upset lately, probably something unsanitary he accidentally ate — his head has also been pounding for hours — he’s trying to abstain from taking drugs unnecessarily because their supply is limited — and there is an intense, awkward silence across the table.

  
He actually misses the days when all Jaime and Brienne ever did was say unnecessary mean shit to each other. He doesn’t know what happened to make them like this with each other. He doesn’t give enough of a fuck to ask.

 

 

 

  
When she was 17 years old, she had convinced herself that she couldn’t take it anymore. A handsome boy who was a real smooth talker and full of big promises kept harping on the restrictions in her home — on her parents’ strictness. Her older brothers were all grown and had left the house as soon as they could. She was the one left behind and left alone with them. In her fights with her dad, he used to tell her that their culture is not this abominable Westeros culture of laxness and of undisciplined excess. He told her that owned her for life, because he was her father. Perhaps that statement that rang so desperately true at the time — that it made her run away from home and temporarily move into her boyfriend’s parents’ house. They were white and very empathetic to her plight. In hindsight — well, a lot of her opinions have changed with hindsight.

  
Her dad killed her mom in her absence. And then he shot himself soon after. The event was covered by local media outlets for a few weeks — with tone-deaf commentary on culture that she has since learned to shut out of her mind — otherwise she’d go crazy.

  
“He’s still sleeping,” Brienne says, scraping a chair against the floor. Her brows are furrowed. She’s worried.

  
“He’s still sleeping?” Missandei repeats, stunned.

  
“I think he’s sick.”

 

 

  
From the doorway, she can see that he is at least awake now. He is still lying on the bed, on top of the sheets. It looks entirely too intimate. She feels heat flood her cheeks. She keeps her voice casual and conversational as she says, “Did you know that in war, more soldiers died from infection and disease than they did on the battlefield?”

  
“What?” he mutters, shutting his eyes tightly, throwing his arm over his face. His tone is already cranky. “That’s actually not true. Which war are you talking about? One from friggin’ four hundred years ago?”

  
“God, you’re just so cute sometimes.” She immediately bites down on her bottom lip. She blurted it out because it’s so truthful, and hiding the truth just doesn’t matter as much to her anymore.

  
He tenses up, perhaps not fully agreeing with her when it comes to honesty. He starts shifting around in bed, smoothing down his clothes with his hands before he sits up, leaning his back against the wall, staring at her from across the small room with this aggressive kind of skepticism.

  
“How are you feeling?” she says, changing the subject.

  
“Amazing,” he says, lightly sarcastic — a small and sheepish grin creeping over his face to smooth over the edge.

  
And he is — very, very cute. It’s becoming a thing that is very distracting. He has these mannerisms that convey his discomfort — mostly avoidant ones. He cuts eye contact, ends conversations, changes the subject. She likes how he fidgets with his hands when he doesn’t know what to say to her. She likes how he swallows — how he swallows slowly. She also likes the intensity and the single-mindedness in his eyes. She likes the thoughtful consideration he gives to things before he voices his opinions out loud. She likes the way he smells when he passes by or when he walks too closely to her. “We’ve been going at it pretty hard,” she says. “Haven’t had a day off in a while. Maybe it’s a good day for some R&R?”

  
He kind of smiles tiredly at that. “Sure. Sounds nice. I don’t have the energy to fight you on this.”

  
Her jaw drops. “Oh my God, he acquiesces!”

  
“Yes,” he says. “He hears you. You want him to stop being such an asshole all the time.”

  
“Oh my God, he listens!”

  
“Shut up.” He throws his pillow at her. And she just kind of loses it — inside — a little bit. The dam inside breaks and it gives a little bit. And she’s smiling at him so transparently as she edges further and further into the room, toward the bed. Where he is overly logical and overly cerebral, she tends to jump first with her intuition and her heart. She kind of has to shut down a lot of reservations to do so. But she sees him, and there was a time when she thought she’d never get to see him again.

  
“Do you know what I used to worry about, when it came to you?” she asks.

  
He grins wryly. “Oh God, I imagine _so many_ things.”

  
She shrugs. “I used to worry that one day, you’d die on the job. And then I would have to listen to a recording of you dying, so that I could write a report on it.”

  
The grin drops from his face. “Well, that was darker than what I was expecting you to say,” he says somberly.

  
“I’m really glad you didn’t run over and try to save me the other day.”

  
He sighs. He unfolds his hands and he opens them up in his lap. He says, “Well, Brienne was there. She’s very good.” And then, he says, “To be honest, I really wanted to run over and . . . get you.”

  
She takes another step forward. “Why didn’t you?”

  
He raises his face to aim it at her. His expression is grave and firm. He says, “When we . . . make emotional decisions in the moment like that, we put everyone’s lives at risk. It wasn’t the correct thing to do.”

  
She’s next to the bed now. Her hand hangs limply and uselessly at her side — as she generally agonizes to herself over how appropriate it is to reach out and touch him. She clenches her fist, and she says, “I worried that how you feel about me is a liability — that it’ll get you killed one day.”

  
“I worry about the same thing. Sometimes. But flipped around.” He smiles grimly to himself, down into his lap. “That I’ll be the thing that gets you killed one day.”

  
“That stuff matters less to me now.”

  
“Yeah?”

  
“You didn’t come for me. You didn’t try to save me.”

  
He hesitates, pausing before he says, “No. I didn’t.”

  
“Do you want to spend the whole day together? Just the two of us? Alone?” It actually takes an inordinate amount of bravery for her to say that. She says it with such intention that he has got to be fucking brain-dead if he doesn’t get what she is saying, what she is proposing and offering up to him. And she thinks — believes — that she can do this now. She can do this again, with someone she cares about — someone who is him. She believes that he is the exception. And life is honestly already so hard — and Jaime is not wrong. And she supposes she has found the thing — the person — that has great potential to make her happy.

  
He’s quiet for a long time. “Missandei, we don’t get this luxury right now. We don’t have the time to figure this out or explore this.”

  
“What if one of us dies tomorrow? I mean, that’s actually the reality.”

  
He looks upset. “I don’t know how to respond to that.”

  
“God, I like you _so much,”_ she blurts — again. “I really, really like you. God, that sounds so stupid. I mean — I care about you a lot. I honestly don’t care about the circumstances that much anymore. I just want to fucking be _with you.”_

  
“Are you talking about sex?” he says flatly.

  
_“No,”_ she says automatically. His bluntness stuns her. “I mean, I don’t _just_ mean sex.”

  
“There’s so much about me you just don’t know,” he murmurs.

  
“I mean, you can tell me things about yourself?” she says hopefully.

  
He shakes his head. Before he says, “No.”

 

 

 

  
Days later, he blows it wide open.

  
He smacks her roughly on the arm while they are eating dinner, jostling her attention away from the glowing TV screen. She says, “Ow,” as she looks at him with an annoyed and wounded expression. “What’s wrong?”

  
“You remember seven years ago, on the island? You were sneaking down food and a bottle of wine for me that first night. You told me that you had to steal the wine from Tyrion Lannister. And then you sat down, we started eating, and you made fun of him for his get-up. You said he dressed himself like 2 Chainz’s weed carrier. You said that his necklace —”

  
“Was too thick and too gold,” she finishes. “Yeah.”

  
“This note,” he says, pointing to her computer screen. “You wrote this note — gold chain with a seven-pointed star.”

  
“I wrote that note because I thought it was tacky and —” She lightly coughs. “And because I thought it was weird that he had a necklace with another religion’s symbol on it.” Her eyes widen. “Oh damn.”

  
“What, oh damn?” Jaime says, propping himself up into sitting position.

  
Grey is holding up her laptop and tapping the screen repeatedly, in agitation. “Oh damn this motherfucker lied. This motherfucker was wearing your brother’s necklace.”

  
She grabs onto his arm. “Oh my God.”

  
“Oh my God!” Jaime exclaims.

 

 

 


	21. twenty-one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime continues to alienate the only friends he has in life. Grey makes a mistake in judgement --- or several mistakes. Brienne and Missandei continue to be flawless and wonderful people. :)

 

 

 

Jaime challengingly asks him what his great plan is gonna be, and it makes him want to palm Jaime’s face like a basketball and throw it into the wall because he doesn’t think he has to justify anything to people like Jaime anymore. He doesn’t like the way Jaime talks to them — to him and Brienne — as if standing on a higher rung, a higher plane. He supposes it’s just a behavior that is ingrained in Jaime’s blood and made habitual through years of practice.

Brienne has been more tense and more silent than ever — this, he also blames on Jaime. He is frustrated because he doesn’t have the vocabulary in which to ask her what the hell is wrong with her — this, he blames on himself. He has tried to nudge at the issue. He asked her if she has been tired. She told him that she has been normal. Her benign response made him feel like a real idiot-asshole.

“Hey, I’m talking to you.” Jaime snaps a couple fingers in front of his nose.

Grey slinks further down into his seat, arms crossed over his chest, and feigns deafness. He looks straight ahead — through Jaime — unseeing.

“Are you serious right now?” Jaime says incredulously.

 

 

  
Over a breakfast of stale bread, some animal fat, and watery ale because they cannot trust the water in this city after he got sick — Missandei brushes the crumbs off her shirt as she tells them that Jadot Ghilbi has three daughters, two sons — only the youngest daughter is not yet married and still living in the family home. Ghilbi is a spice merchant. The summer has been inordinately cold and his yields this annum has been below average. Yet, there is an anomaly in his accounts — there are small, but consistent sums being transferred into his account every fourteen days or so. Missandei apologetically says she cannot track the payor, just the financial institution flowing the transaction.

She tells him Ghilbi has a penchant for alcohol, gambling, and women. The holy trinity that make up the downfall of family men. He also speaks in proverbs and colloqualisms — most of which she did not understand and could not translate accurately. It was all a thinly veiled dig at her, a targeted reminder that she may speak the language with technical proficiency, but she is still an outsider.

Grey leans back further into his chair and tilts his chin into the heel of his hand, attentively listening, trying to imprint every seemingly inconsequential detail she is spilling into his brain, organizing it and filing it away so that his subconscious might make connections in the background that may prove to be significant later.

“How many stories is his house?” he asks in a lull, leaning forward to gently pushing a heel of bread with lard smeared on it into her hand. She’s still underweight.

“Three,” she responds faithfully, before lightly shaking her head no, pushing the bread back at him. She frowns and says, “Stop.”

“You stop,” he returns, ripping the bread in half in his hands. He quickly gives her the bigger half before he stuffs his portion into his mouth. He figures that this is an adequate compromise.

Her small smile as she nibbles on the piece of bread is a weird combination of exasperation and shyness.

 

 

  
He and Brienne lay out their money and their gear out on the bed. There are a pair of comm devices, a few blunt blades he had slipped into his pockets while out during their sweeps. There’s a plastic ziploc bag of medicine that he nearly lost his ass over — antibiotics, blister packs of birth control, fat, rattling bottles of painkillers — and a very modest wad of paper money that they got from selling their guns.

“Well, I feel good about this,” Brienne lightly quips, before going back to worrying down her bottom lip with her teeth.

“We can sell some of the meds,” he mutters. He hates that idea. “Or . . .”

She arches a brow. “Or?”

He shrugs. “We can take.”

Her flat expression doesn’t lift into one of surprise — because she’s not surprised. She says, “Ah, a Greyism,” referring to a fundamental difference between them. She has murmured a speculation out loud in regard to this — that they all invariably act out what they were taught and what was modeled to them. She let the statement hang in the air, perhaps too embarrassed to embellish on it more. He’d rather cut straight to the heart of the matter. She was loved by her father in a way that was simple and straightforward, and she inherited this sense of honor from him.

Grey was also loved by his mother — but not in a way that was simple or straightforward. As it is — he can only be patient as Brienne mulls over their options.

Her fingers brush against the bed spread before she closes her hand into a fist. She closes her eyes momentarily before she says, “Are my stupid ideals going to be what gets you killed?”

He kind of laughs at that. He says, “Everyone is so concerned with whether I live or die.”

“We’ve become rather fond of you.”

 

 

  
Missandei's hand is heavy on his shoulder for a moment, as she eases herself down into the chair next to him and continues carefully pressing her wet curly hair between the ends of a threadbare towel. She smells overly perfumed with soap. There is heat from the shower radiating off of her. Sometimes it just feels like he’s dying inside, when he catches a glimpse of how she looks at him sometimes, and he feels such pointless hope over it. Her legs are bare, and she hitches a foot onto the seat of her chair, so that she can balance her chin on her knee.

He feels like he has to get out of his seat. He feels like he has to put more distance in between them.

She blessedly ignores his awkwardness. She just stifles a yawn as her head tilts on her knee. She says, “How early should we leave tomorrow?”

“Huh?”  
  
“When do you want to hit the road tomorrow?” she repeats, this time slower, brows furrowing in slight confusion as she stares at him from her seat.

 

 

  
The door is slightly ajar and Jaime grins wryly as he knocks on it, pushes it open, and says, “Hello! We’re here to —”

Grey books it as a loud clang rings out, as a tray gets dropped — as Jaime sputters and coughs into his fist, fanning at the dispersing cloud of wheat flour with his handless arm. Grey hears Brienne shout at him — shout that she’s going upstairs — as he runs out the swinging back door after Ghilbi.

He closes the distance quickly — shoes gripping the bumpy, dusty ground as he lunges forward and slams his shoulder into Ghilbi’s spine, taking them both down with a thump, his fall cushioned by the thick man underneath him. Ghilbi’s gasping and coughing, rendered temporarily immobile because the wind got knocked out of him. Grey makes short work of tying the man’s hands together behind his back before he yanks the both of them back up to their feet.

 

 

  
There’s a commotion upstairs in the house when he drags Ghilbi back to it. He silently looks at Missandei, who is standing at the foot of the stairs by herself, tense. He shoves Ghilbi into the pantry closet — a holding area for now — and shuts the door, bracing it shut with a wooden chair, beckoning Missandei to stand guard in front of it, which she does so, without a word.

He climbs the stairs quickly, looking for Brienne, his heart pounding in his chest as he hears broken pottery and hears a hollow thud hit the walls, rattling the old house.

A loud scream from a woman breaks out when he hits the top landing. He sees Jaime on the ground, blearily trying to get back on his feet. He sees a frightened young woman hiding behind a bed. He sees Brienne’s purpling face, and her fighting a chokehold, by throwing her weight and her assailant backwards into the wall.

It’s a Blue.

Grey pulls out his knife. He absently thinks that this isn’t the first time he’s stabbed someone in the back. There is never any honor in this.

The knife goes in easily, in between the ribs. He holds down the Blue as the shock of getting knifed makes it let go of Brienne. She stumbles a few steps out of reach, toward Jaime, coughing with her hand at her throat. And then, as Grey knows well, the dying always fight so hard to live — he pulls out his knife and sinks it back in, higher — piercing lung, letting blood flow unencumbered — as the Blue thrashes and screams — manly and human — and he holds the Blue’s neck in the crook of his elbow — as hands scratch at his arm — as he waits for the Blue to slowly bleed out — as a grief-stricken woman runs at him screaming with broken banister in her hand.

She gets one good hit in before Brienne grabs her and pulls her away from him.

He’s almost stunned enough to let his arm go lax — but he can feel the moment the Blue’s body succumbs and gives up — when the thrashing stops and it comes to peace with what is inevitable. And she is wailing like she is dying, too. And up here, only he can understand what is being said and what is being screamed at them — and what they are being accused of. The Blue only has moments left. Grey lets him go. The Blue limply braces his body up with his hands against the floorboards.

Grey’s voice is hoarse from disuse. He tells Brienne, “Let her go.” Brienne looks at him doubtfully — but she trusts him, so she lets the woman go.

The young woman urgently crawls over to the Blue and cradles his face in her hands. And he says to her not to be scared because they had expected this to happen one day. He tells her that he is not scared because, after all, he has already died once before. She just cries as she holds onto him, as she fruitlessly tries to push back the bleeding, as she wavers between anger and grief, as she tells him that she will love him forever.

 

 

  
Tears break out of her eyes, too, when the muffled screaming and the commotion stop upstairs. It’s a physical response — one out of her control. Her mind is running wild — paranoid thoughts creeping in — she experimentally tells herself that he is dead and this is her new world now and she just has to get used to it. And her body spasms back a short sob, as she frantically works to regain her bearings. She tells herself she actually doesn’t know what has happened upstairs — she can’t begin to process what she doesn’t know has happened.

The pantry is quiet, too, as multiple thick footsteps come down the stairs. Her pulse is thick and fast in her throat.

Heat floods her face and she does cry a little bit — when she recognizes his steps. She quickly reaches up and swipes at her face with the heels of her hands.

 

 

  
“I love it when a woman cries uncontrollably because we’ve killed her undead lover, who is now dead-dead,” Jaime mutters darkly, scraping a chair across the bumpy floorboards. He puts it behind Ghilbi’s daughter. “Sit down, hon,” he says quietly, even though he knows she can’t understand him. “Fucking sucks you’re having a bad day.”

“Lannister!” Brienne snaps. “Goddammit, will you shut up!”

Jaime sighs. “Sorry,” he says. He doesn’t follow up the apology with any sort of other statement or explanation. “Okay, Missy, translate for me?”

 

 

  
He feels cold inside — and despondent because this is who they have become — as he holds his bloody knife to the throat of Ghilbi’s youngest daughter and generally sees that Ghilbi is attached to his child. Jaime’s questions get answered swiftly and succinctly, as the man simultaneously begs for them not to hurt his daughter.

Afterward, for good measure, Grey counts out a few bills by touch, behind the shop counter — face staring back into Brienne’s large blue eyes. He wordlessly pockets the cash and follows her out the door, leaving Ghilbi tied up, leaving a body upstairs, leaving his daughter to free her father and clean up the rest of the mess.

 

 

  
“How did it even work?” Jaime asks, as he gingerly lowers himself into his chair. He looks over at Brienne and lightly clinks his mug of ale against hers. She stiffens. He goes on to add, “I mean, were they even the same species?”

Missandei knows that Jaime talks the most when he is uncomfortable — when he is avoiding himself and his own thoughts. “Technically he had a human body. I imagine it worked the same way it does with anyone else,” she says quietly. “Or maybe it didn’t, but they found a way anyway. Love is just love, most of the time.”

“Oh, God,” Jaime says, voice suddenly loud and derisive. “Spare me.”

She feels Brienne getting even more tense, and she can detect Grey’s hyper-awareness kicking in. On her part, she knows Jaime — or at least, she’s pretty sure she knows Jaime. She knows he’s been drinking. She knows he’s upset. She knows he’s picking a fight for reasons he cannot even articulate to himself.

“Love isn’t just _love,”_ Jaime mutters. “Love is some abomination that makes you _fucking crazy._ It makes you do horrible fucking things, and it isn’t _normal._ Do you think it’s _normal_ to look upon some dead _thing_ and say to yourself, ‘Oh, I fancy that feeling-less monstrosity. Maybe I should take off my clothes and let it penetrate me and trust that it won’t just fucking kill me on a whim.’” Jaime scoffs. “She was fucking batshit mental. And if you don’t see that, well, then — you’re fucking crazy, too.”

Missandei suddenly stands up — she supposes that as much as she tells herself she understands Jaime in ways that Grey and Brienne cannot — due to their experiences — she supposes there’s still only so much of his fucking bullshit she will put up with before she is just some punching bag for him. “Don’t call me crazy,” she says, voice low and quiet and angry.

“What?” Jaime throws back. “I was just joking! Shit!” He stares up at her face. “Are you seriously mad at me right now? I was just joking!”

She crosses her arms over her chest protectively, and she shakes her head. Then she walks away, her dinner half-eaten.

 

 

  
She hears footsteps behind her — and she thinks it’s Jaime, running up to her to apologize — so she’s a little taken aback, when she sees Grey staring at her, uncertain. There is a plate of food in his hand.

And she can’t help it. She kind of sinks her weight against the railing that separates them from the small stream below. She laughs as she reaches her hand out, waving him closer. She takes the plate from him and balances it on the thin railing, her body still shaking a little bit in amusement. She faithfully folds a piece of lamb in between dry, crusty bread and smears the makeshift sandwich in the meat drippings on the plate. She breaks off half of it with her teeth and chews through the uncomfortable mouthful. She sees his expression transition from worried to relieved. And then he self-consciously tries to give her a smile. It looks really odd and strained. It just kills her.

It’s so stupid, how she feels about him.

“Are you okay?” he asks, his voice barely above a whisper.

She nods, mouth still full from food. She tries to tell him she’s actually pretty okay, and Jaime is just being Jaime — but it comes out utterly muffled and incomprehensible. She holds up her hand — gesturing for him to give her a moment.

He kind of laughs.

She swallows. “Are _you_ okay?”

The bewildered expression on his face is becoming a staple. He touches his chest in reflex and says, “Me? I’m fine.”

“No, I mean — I know you’re physically fine. But I mean — it couldn’t have been easy today. You killed someone.”

He flinches at that — at how she said it so transparently. “I’ve killed a lot of people,” he says blandly. “It’s probably your favorite thing about me.”

She smiles grimly at that. “One of my favorite things,” she says softly.

“I’m so sorry,” he says.

She feels her face screwing up in confusion. “For what?”

“Everything,” he says.

“Stop that,” she says. “‘Everything’ is not your fault.”

He lightly nudges her hand with his forefinger. She looks down and sees her plate of food. She sees her discarded mini-sandwich. She picks it up and shoves the rest of it into her mouth. She wants to make some joke about how he’s trying to fatten her up so that he can . . . eat her? Like the witch in Hansel and Gretel? She actually doesn’t really have a good joke for this. She knows why he’s trying to fatten her up, and it’s kind of unbearably sweet and heartbreaking — she tries not to think about it very hard because it is distracting when she does.

“I think I made a huge mistake today,” he mutters, leaning against the railing. “Maybe he didn't have to die. I just feel like such shit over it. And I keep revisiting these other old mistakes and feeling like shit over them, too.”

She swallows the bite — it goes down dry and painfully. She touches his arm, holds onto it. And she says, “It’s really, really hard to do what you do. And you’re a good person. That’s why you feel bad. It’s okay to feel bad for a while. But don’t obsess over it. We all make bigger mistakes when we are distracted.”

“I’m not a good person, though.”

She socks him. Right in the meaty part of his arm. It’s almost comical, the shocked expression that he gives her. “Oh my God,” she says. “Shut up, you delusional idiot. You totally are a good person.”

 

 

  
Brienne does not look particularly surprised when he gently nudges her awake — as he lifts the blanket for Missandei to slide in next to her. Brienne just groans and makes room for Missandei before mumbling that Jaime is such an asshole and constantly gets rewarded for being one — before she laughs at herself and goes back to her light, restful snoring.

“Don’t sleep on the floor,” Missandei whispers to him, in the dark. He feels her fingers tugging lightly at his. “Don’t pointlessly forego sleep, either, you dummy.”

He doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t know what to say. He just feels like a fucking stupid dope. He feels wrapped up in how stupid he is.

“I promise I will keep my hands to myself,” she whispers — on purpose — and he falls for the trap anyway. He feels something heavy drop in his gut. He feels hot and sweaty and uncomfortable and tired and also needy.

Her body freezes when he slips in beside her — as if she had never really truly believed he’d go for this — and he’s about to freaking backtrack and climb out because this is really stupid — when he feels her grabbing onto his shirt, when he feels her hook a leg over his so that he can’t get away easily.

“Oh my God,” she whispers, so close to him. “Don’t leave. Please.”

He wants to make some comment about how she had lied about keeping her hands to herself — but he just feels too bombarded with thoughts and feelings — the overriding one being one of dread and regret. This is going to be hard to let go of — he already knows.

The hug is oppressive and tight — she’s afraid he’s going to run away. It’s probably a very valid fear. But Brienne is like, right there and unconscious. And this is insane and bizarre and unnatural. And he is just fucking so gone and so lost and so in love. It is horrible.

He feels wetness on his neck. He touches the side of her face — feels tears there. He whispers, “Stop.”

 _“You_ stop.”

 

 

 


	22. twenty-two

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Missandei and Brienne 'jokingly' threaten Jaime with bodily harm. We learn why Jaime and Brienne have been awkward around each other. And our heroes are off to the next mysterious destination!

 

 

 

When he wakes up, his first raw feeling is one of panic — he feels claustrophobic. His first raw thought is that his mother’s embrace feels entirely different.

And then his blood runs cold, even as he sweats, even as he snaps fully awake and remembers where he is and who he is with and what year it is and how old he is. He’s not a child. She is dead. And he is with another woman. He has to get out of bed.

Her arm unconsciously tightens around his waist as he reluctantly pulls himself out of her grasp — his clothes are damp from sweat — from general anxiety and also from the radiant body heat of being crammed into a tiny bed with two other people. Brienne continues her light snoring — she’s a bit of a heavy sleeper — and Missandei stirs a little bit, groaning softly in her sleep before she rolls into the spot he had just vacated, curling into the residual warmth.

 

 

  
The sky is starting to glow orange, outlining the squat dusty buildings around them. It’s barely even morning — just a touch of light is brightening the sky. Rain here is rare, so living spaces are open to the air. In another place, the tiled floor area would be called a sun deck. Here, he can look up at the cloudless and vast purple sky as he scrounges up a meager breakfast.

He finds Jaime seated by himself at a table, rolling a cup of dark liquid in his good hand. The chair Jaime is sitting in squeaks a little bit when Jaime stiffens — when Jaime notices his presence.

“It’s coffee,” Jaime explains needlessly, as Grey sits down in the empty seat across the table.

Grey waves off the start of Jaime’s defensiveness. “You said we,” Grey mutters, slouching in the rickety chair, pressing the pads of his fingers to brush the crusty remainder of sleep out of his eyes.

“What?”

“Yesterday, you said _we_ killed him,” Grey says. _“I_ actually killed him.”

Jaime rolls his eyes before he breathily says, “Semantics.” And then a tired grin spreads across his face. “All for one and one for all.” He slides his half-finished cup of coffee toward Grey. “We’re a team, and the team that slays together stays together.”

Grey pushes his short smile into the rim of the cold coffee cup. “Is that how the saying really goes?”

Jaime raises his right arm, showing Grey the wrapped stump. “I’m actually completely useless. I don’t know why I said we. I couldn’t even kill a fucking fly these days.”

“Yet, you were upstairs getting your ass beaten by — what did you call it? — an undead abomination. It’s like you have a death wish. Or you were worried about somebody.”

Jaime winces at the choice of words, and then quickly raises his hand up to rub at the back of his neck. “Technically, I said that love was the abomination. But that’s beside the point. The point is that Brienne sounded like she was hoarding all of the ass-beating fun to herself. You know how much I hate being left out.”

Grey nods absently, sipping from the acrid cup. It tastes like dirt. It doesn’t taste like how he remembers coffee tasting. He wouldn’t even be surprised if they laced the coffee grounds with actual dirt, to stretch the supply. “Can I ask — what the hell did you do to her? Or, what did she do to you?” He supposes that it’s easier to volley blunt honesty at Jaime than it is at Brienne. For one, Jaime deals exclusively in brutal honesty — in unwarranted and unsolicited honesty. For another, Grey is more sentimental about Brienne that he is about Jaime. Grey tends to be very awkward around the things and the people who make him feel sentimental.

Jaime sighs. “You really wanna know?”

“I don’t know. Do I want to know? Is it gross and cruel?”

“It is actually really stupid.”

This, he did not expect. Grey starts smiling again, which he immediately kills because Jaime’s face stays fairly serious.

“We saw each other naked,” Jaime says gravely. “I was being horrible to her, and we were fighting over who gets to shower first — then a game of naked chicken happened. And I didn’t think she’d actually win. I though she’d just run out of the room in fright — or run out of the room crying. But she stayed. And she won. And now she can’t look me in the face. Probably because I’m maimed and disgusting and grotesque. I’ve tried to get back to the fun bantering we used to do. You know, I say stuff about her face or her manly height — she says stuff about how she wishes I were dead. But now, when I say these things, she just looks at me and looks all hurt all the time. And I just feel terrible all the time.”

Grey flits his eyes back and forth across the room — kind of aimlessly — buying time as he thinks about the proper response to this. After a long silence, he settles his gaze back on Jaime, and he says, “I really did not think this was your guys’ problem.” He shuts his mouth after that — because he still does not know what to say. And after he sees that Jaime is waiting him out — is forcing him to continue talking, he says, “It’s really not the end of the world — seeing a woman naked. Her seeing you naked.” Grey nods. “You guys can get past this, Jaime.”

Jaime’s laugh is loud and sudden. Grey watches suspiciously as Jaime continues laughing really exaggeratedly, as he rattles his chair and cradles his chest in his arms.

“See this?” Grey says over the laughing. _“This_ is why I try not to talk to people. I feel dumb now.”

“Don’t feel dumb,” Jaime says, hiccupping lightly from holding back laughter. “It’s just funny. Because you were so nice and so earnest, and it sounded really out of character. Plus, we both know how it’s shaking out for you — seeing the girl naked, her seeing you naked. What you said was ironic.”

“Huh?”

 _“Huh?”_ Jaime returns mockingly.

 

 

  
The awkwardness is fleeting — and kind of endearing — when, in her half-asleep state, she feels Brienne stiffen, when Brienne realizes that Missandei is hot-breathing into her spine, in between her shoulder blades.

Missandei coughs and immediately rolls over onto her back. Her voice is scratchy as she croaks out, “Sorry. You were warm, and you smell nice.”

Brienne huffs out a short laugh. “You know, Yara used to say that kind of stuff to me, to make me uncomfortable.”

“Oh,” Missy says softly. “Sorry if I made you uncomfortable. I’m a serial cuddler.”

“Is that —”

“Yes. It’s someone who cuddles their victims to death.”

“I see.”

 

 

  
They both can see that Jaime and Grey are in good moods. They are engrossed in easy conversation and are smiling at each other in between comments as they ready the car for another long drive. Next to her, Brienne is also reeling from the whiplash of being caught off-guard at the sight. Brienne keeps a wide distance, falling behind step of Missandei — as they both slowly and warily trudge up to the car.

“Morning,” Missandei says quietly, waving at the both of them.

“Morning,” Jaime says, turning his face to hers. “How did you sleep?”

“Fine.”

He nods. “Good,” he says simply, reaching out to briefly touch her hand.

“Guess what?” she says.

“What?”

Missandei looks to Brienne, who only flicks open a blunt and unsanitary knife blade for show. Missandei says, “It’s time to remove that tracker from you.”

Jaime raises both of his arms in front of his face as Brienne slowly advances on him with the knife. His bright eyes flick between the two of them in disbelief right before he says, “What the _fuck?”_ — right before Grey steps in front of Jaime and stares at the both of them — both her and Brienne — questioningly.

 

 

  
After Missandei tells him it was a harmless little prank — after Jaime slowly explains to her as if she is daft that it wasn’t a prank because pranks have a certain conceit and a certain structure, both of which were completely absent in her and Brienne’s generally threat of assault on him — Missandei redirects the conversation and tells him that they’ve been talking about it. She and Brienne have been talking about the tracker in his neck. And at this point — they don’t think that it’s such a benign thing anymore — letting Jaime’s sister continue to track them.

Jaime touches the back of his neck near his ear, feeling his skin for the vestiges of the now-healed incision — where the tracker was implanted. He says, “What are you going to do? I wasn’t supposed to tell you guys this exists. She’s going to know —”

“Know what?” Brienne says challengingly. “That we found out and got angry with you and then cut it out of you? Then what? Will a plague of Blues descend upon this city and wipe it out in search of you? Does she care about you that much?”

It’s so disorienting — hearing such darkness and grit in Brienne’s normally calm and steady voice. The only indication that Jaime is affected is in the tick in his cheek, the slight narrowing of his eyes. Then he stiffly says, “No. I don’t suppose she cares about me that much anymore.” He touches his neck again. “So, cut it out, then. Why don’t you personally cut it out of me then, Brienne?”

“Relax,” Missandei breaks in. “It’s a joke. She’s joking. We’re not cutting anything out of you. I thought about jamming the signal — and we can do it easily and inexpensively by shoving you in some metal shield, but I don’t think you will like living in a refrigerator very much. Though jamming the signal pretty much broadcasts that we know about the tracker. So, the more prudent course is a spoofer — we buy one, it sends a fake signal that overrides the signal being transmitted from your neck, and the fake signal reports a false location. If this sounds expensive, that’s because it is.” She looks to Grey. “So, we’re going to need a lot of that money you stole yesterday. Way to inadvertently think ahead, babe.”

She watches as his face predictably tightens at the term of endearment. That is the point. The point is that she woke up, and he wasn’t there. Because he probably had one of his minor freak outs.

She also blames herself and her own pettiness. She keeps repeating to herself over and over again that death is always around the corner and that really requires the entirety of her focus — not some random guy. She also keeps telling herself that she is not the kind of woman who will get on her hands and knees and beg that a man see her value and deign her worthy of his distracted attentions. He said no. She needs to deal with it. She suspects that she is having a horrible time dealing with it — she is really terrible at it. She blames herself and her weaknesses, more than anything else.

“I’m going to start calling these situations ‘moral Grey areas,’” Brienne deadpans. Then she nods at Jaime. “Yes, it did take me all morning to think of that.”

Jaime kind of slumps his shoulders over in relief — he’s relieved that nothing is getting cut out of him. “Missy,” he says tiredly. “I really don’t think you understand what jokes are all about.” He directs his next comment to Brienne, “You — you’re fricking hilarious sometimes. And it scares me.”

 

 

  
“How do I know it’s working?” Jaime asks from the front passenger seat, looking anxiously up ahead into the vastness of beige nothingness, as the car bounces down the long desert road.

“Trust me, it’s working,” Missandei says dryly. “As far as your sister knows, you’re casually making your way up the coast right now.”

 

 

  
After only a few hours on the road, Grey has Brienne stop the car and pull over on the side of the road. He tells them all to keep their seatbelts on and for Brienne to pull the parking brake. His short phrases and enigmatic nature is something that solicits some light protestation from Jaime — mostly in the form of reasonable probing questions.

The questions don’t need much answering when they all see a wall of cloudy dust grow to immense proportion, as it overtakes their car, obscuring all visibility, as the wind shakes metal. Light silica debris rattles the cars, clinking against the windshield like a deafening rainshower.

 

 

  
“You know what I constantly forget about the desert?” Jaime says — his voice breaking out over what feels like an hour of undying dreadful rumbling and wind. “That the desert is actually fucking _cold._ I learned that it gets cold in school. I _know_ this as fact. I’ve actually _been_ in the desert at night before. Yet — yet — I have managed to fucking forget that the desert is anything but a scorching hot, barren wasteland all the time.”

The dust storm settled — but not until after darkness fell. Grey has told them that it’s entirely too dangerous and too dark to keep driving at night — and regardless, they will not reach any town or outpost any time soon — not before dawn. He has told them that it’s probably best to get a few hours of sleep — and then wake up early enough to beat the sun, drive straight through to where they can refill their water supply and check the state of the car.

The car creaks and shifts — the overhead light snaps on and a whoosh of wind floods the car as Grey pushes the back door open and gets out. Missandei hears Brienne pull the latch for the trunk — a wordless action communicated between the two of them clairvoyantly — as the door slams shut harder than necessary due to the force of the wind. Missandei twists in her seat and anxiously stares out the back window — sees his darkened figure puttering out back in the trunk of the car.

He comes back with an armful of blankets and their extra clothes. One of the blankets is the one that they used to cover her bleeding body after her ordeal with Kraznys. She can recognize it, even in the dwindling light. And before she can grab for it — to prove to herself that it isn’t a big deal — Grey throws the blanket up front at Jaime, who mutters a quiet thank you and starts awkwardly unwrapping the sheet over his body with his hand. Brienne gets her own blanket and she settles the material on her lap before she reaches over and helps Jaime by tugging at a corner of the flannel material.

“You guys can lean the seats back a bit,” Grey says gently, lightly tapping at Jaime’s head rest.

“No, I’m okay, man. This is fine.”

“Seriously. There’s space.”

“Seriously, I’m probably not going to be able to sleep at all.”

 

 

  
He wakes up with a gasp — as a bump in the road causes his head to lightly skim the roof of the car. His hand automatically flies to Missandei’s back, pressing against it, holding her in place, her warm head twisting a little in his lap as they hit another bump, as Brienne grunts and mumbles short syllables. “Crap. Sorry. Potholes.”

“How do fucking potholes form when it doesn’t rain —” Jaime bites down a groan. “Oh my God, it fucking rains in the desert, too. I fucking _forgot._ Of course I fucking forgot. I hate myself.”

Grey’s body is sore and tweaked all over from sleeping cramped in the backseat. He’s trying to stretch his muscles without disturbing Missandei, who is miraculously sleeping through this. He hears Brienne’s laugh. He hears Brienne say to Jaime, “I can’t believe I’m saying this — but I think you’re being a little too hard on yourself.”

 

 

  
Missandei wipes the sweat from her brow with the back of forearm and rubs her fingers together a few times to disperse the wetness before she goes back to typing furiously on her computer. She’s been monitoring all of Ghilbi’s electronic activity — all of his transactions, his correspondences — all of it predictable, save for the inordinate sums that is being withdrawn from his accounts — he’s stockpiling for a rainy day or he’s planning on a relocation soon — neither of which she really blames him for. She’s just been waiting for him to contact his mysterious benefactor to tell the guy that the trail has gotten a little hot and he is being followed east by a handless man who claims to be his brother.

No such message has been sent. This means Ghilbi might have sent the news by unreliable, old-fashioned post. Or it means that Ghilbi doesn’t intend to notify his benefactor at all. After all, once he shares the news, the stream of hush money would logically dry up.

She snaps the lid and monitor of her computer shut. She has already set up alerts to notify her of anomaly activity. He’s not necessarily behaving unpredictably. She is just going a little out of her mind with all of the waiting. She remembers Dany’s words to her on her first day of the job. Dany’s eyes zoomed in on her. And she told Missandei that she could always handle the truth — what she didn’t like to handle are surprises. Thus began a career of over-preparation and over-analyzation, one in which she prided herself on her own proactivity. All it feels like she’s been doing lately is putting out fires she has not foreseen — just her reacting to her own circumstances.

 

 

She’s getting a blast of deja vu. They are back to subsiding on very little technology and very few modern comforts. They are still hundreds of miles away from Qohor, the nearest city. They are staying in an inn of indeterminable heritage off the highway. The area is very rural and wildly natural — not her bag. It rankles her nerves, that she is unsure of whether they are even staying in a place with electricity so that she can keep her computer charged.

“I have a surprise for you,” Grey says, directing his comment really at no one in particular — directing his comment to the group at large. “The surprise is that we’re all sharing one room tonight. The surprise is that we’re saving money. You’re welcome.”

“Coin flip for who gets to sleep with tall, dark, and cranky,” Jaime drawls, sidling up to her. “Or I’ll just fight you for it. Spoiler alert — I taught you everything you know about kicking ass. So —” He sighs, and then lowers his voice as he watches Grey and Brienne walk back to the car to unload their bags. “I mostly just want to give Brienne space. She’s really not happy with me at the moment.”

Missandei can’t tell if he’s serious or if he’s just fucking around again. She looks at his profile, and he seems serious.

 

 

  
He sees Jaime’s rakish grin hovering over him, right before the light gets snuffed out from the room. And then he feels the bed depress, and he can hear and feel Jaime’s shifting, as he gets comfortable.

“There was a coin toss,” Jaime explains needlessly.

“And you lost?”

He hears Jaime scoff.

“He won,” Missandei’s soft voice calls out, from not too far away. The room is small, and it is mostly taken up by the beds. “We all wanted to sleep with you. Reportedly because you do not move or make a sound in your sleep, and you take up a rather small footprint of the bed. I’m affectionately calling it psycho-sleeping.”

“Speak for yourself, Missandei,” Jaime cuts in. “I’m in this for the aggressive spooning and the morning cuddles.”

He hears someone choke on a laugh before it gets completely stifled and shut down. He cannot tell who laughed — Missandei or Brienne — but he can practically _feel_ Jaime’s smiling radiating out, beside him.

“Well, I just hope I’m a proper consolation prize,” Brienne’s deep feminine timber calls out.

He hears blankets moving around on the other bed. Then he hears Missandei say, “Hush. You smell really nice.”

“I had a dream like this once —”

“Shut up, Jaime.”

“No, God. No. I didn’t mean — I _meant_ that I really had a dream about this. About all of us. As disembodied voices. You were all in my head. We were talking about mundane, normal things. It was odd, but nice. Yara and Pod were in my dream, too. We talked about cats — kittens.” He pauses. And without ambient light from the street or the light noise of traffic — the darkness feels thick and viscous. “My nephew likes cats, I think.”

 

 

 


End file.
